Deadeye - The Beauty of the End
by tb0neski
Summary: The Summoner's Rift has once again come fully online, with champions beginning to take their place on the rift. However, this time the game refuses to exit. All the champions gathered in the rift are bound together in an endless killing game. Who will survive? –Inspired by Danganronpa (Note: This is rated M for its coarse language and explicit detailing of killings)
1. Prologue

(NOTE: This story will occasionally be told in the first person voice of Jhin; the main story will be third person. Jhin's monologues will be indicated by tildas ~)

~ The world is _ugly_. It has been tainted by the people who wish to be called 'heroes.' The hymns of beauty that I used to let fire has been reduced to evil. They called me crazy…But is beauty not in the eye of the beholder?

It all started when I was a boy, and I wanted to be a writer. All of my stories were rejected, except for one. The reason it wasn't rejected…is because _I didn't ask for acceptance_ …the gun talked on its own…

But that is the beauty of the weapon. It is a whisper-less object, and yet you can hear it sing and call on us to act. It's the stage light to the opera of life. It is, indeed, the _real motive._

There is a new calling that is happening as we speak. It will be the most beautiful event in the history of Valoran. I want to show everyone true art, on their patented _Summoner's Rift._ I only wish that my puppets will fully cooperate with the script. That's right – everything is about to go according to plan. I am going to make this world beautiful. ~

The man opened up a super computer, as he unfolded a stack of papers he had inside of his bag. The first word that was printed boldly on the cover was:

' ** _THE BEAUTY OF THE END'_**

 _Hahahahahahahahaha…_

 _Our performance…begins…_


	2. Act I - Pain is Beauty

Valoran is a land filled with champions that represent each nation and Summoners who call on them to fight on a virtualized rift. The Institute of War had crafted the Summoner's Rift in the hopes that those champions who represented their respective nations would no longer resort to actual war. For over 50 years, they had been able to make amends with all nations and unilaterally agree that conflict is best resolved on the Rift. The Institute had decided to make a showmanship match to display how the champions of the Summoner's Rift battled against each other on the Rift for those who had never been a part of the Institute of War or the League of Legends. The rematch of Ionia versus Noxus was a very historical moment for people who would be watching, as there are still a lot of veterans on both sides who were forced into battle by their country. They could finally see the fruits of their labor come together in non-offensive combat.

"All systems are a go, Captain!" The workers who were helping televise the event were working hard and happily, without fear of what the audience would see.

The Captain who was looking over them was the headmaster of the Institute of War, a man named Tetsuken. "The match should end shortly. Our viewer rating is going through the roof; I'm very pleased with all your work today, gentleman!"

There was a large monitor that displayed the match right outside the Institute of War for those who wanted to see it on the big screen. The relatives who were related to the champions on the Rift were pointing and shouting with glee at the large projection of their elongated battle as it was about to come to an end.

"It looks like Katarina is going for the Nexus, the respawn timers on the champions from Ionia are just too long. This ends our showmatch for today, as they deal the finishing blow!"

The crowd was going wild, as they waited to see Ionia's nexus explode. But, minutes after they reduced the Nexus to zero, the game was still going on. The casters were just as confused as the audience. They started tapping into the voice communications for the workers.

"What's going on?!"

"No clue sir, there's no known bugs in place. We might just have to wait it out."

The Captain looked outside as he saw people shouting and demanding an end to their match. "This show cannot go on any longer. We have to find a way to end it!"

As Tetsuken said this, the workers started freezing up. "W-What's going on with our controls? We can't change the camera!"

"WHAT?"

Before Tetsuken could say anything else, the audience started pointing to the center of the Nexus, where they saw a shadowy figure come out of the crystal. The figure started to take shape, into the champion known as Jhin. He spoke out to the champions.

"The stage is finally set…"

Everyone around Jhin at him, with deadly eyes. "You dare delay my kill?" Katarina instantly pulled out two knives from her belt and got behind Jhin.

"I'm afraid that will not stop me, Du Couteau girl. I only come here to display a new message for the followers of Ionia and Noxus, as well as others who live in Valoran."

Tetsuken ran into the control room, and slammed his fists onto the computer controls. "SHUT THE BROADCAST DOWN, NOW!"

Jhin was quicker to the punch. Although he was displayed on the Rift, he shot a bullet that went straight through the power off sequence for the broadcast. "I really hate it when people interrupt without at least hearing me out. This performance _will be heard by the entire world, even if it kills me._ "

"Sir, forgive us!" The workers all fell to the ground, with their hands over their heads.

Tetsuken knew there was only one more option if he wanted to stop the broadcast immediately. "Start the shutdown sequence."

"Ah, the fabled shutdown sequence." Jhin's voice was heard not only on the rift, but now on the big screen and the workers in the control room. "I wanted to explain my next sequence, but that must wait. It should be just as important to explain what will happen if the Institute of War decides to start the shutdown sequence." Jhin moved over to the champions of Ionia in the fountain, and put his holographic hand on Ahri's head. "You see this beautiful hero of your country, Ionia? I hope you weren't attached to her, because she would disappear from reality along with the rest of the champions here if the Institute pulls the plug on our performance."

Upon hearing this, the uproar of the crowd started becoming much louder. It became so loud that the monitors inside the Institute of War started shaking.

Tetsuken clenched his fist. "Fuck, who the hell is this guy?"

"Ahem, now that I have the attention of the audience, I think it's time that we begin our introduction…" Jhin bowed to the crowd, even though he could not see them. The camera was pointed on him, and he could move it with just the twitch of a few fingers. "My name is Jhin, and I am just like all of you. The only difference lies in the way that I see beauty, seemingly. You see, the Institute has brainwashed you into believing that war is evil, and that fighting over land resolves nothing. We have replaced the real yet horrific image of soldiers dying with playful splash arts of your beloved champions, and glorify those who step into this rift. I am here to simply offer you a new vision of the world. This broadcast will continue until there are only four champions alive."

The audience started to gasp in horror. The thought of seeing idols and representatives to their country lose in combat was already shocking, but hearing this was different.

Tetsuken tapped into the televised communications, and his voice was heard by the champions and the audience. "Everyone, please stay calm. We are currently investigating an intruder into the Summoner's Rift, and he will be dealt with immediately. Remember the faith that you have in your champions, and know that we will keep everything under control. Even if you see someone die on the Rift, they have always respawned and stepped back into your lands unharmed!"

While Tetsuken tried hard to calm down the crowd, they would be continually riled up by Jhin. "Yes, that may have been true before I stepped onto the stage. It seems that I'm going to have to create some demonstrations so the people truly know who they are dealing with." Jhin disappeared from the camera, and from the sight of the champions.

"What the…-GUH" before another word could be spoken by the champions, they heard a loud slash pierce through armor quickly. It was Garen, who was now being displayed by the camera as a green blade impaled him. He was being surrounded by tree branches that sprouted from his blood wounds. He was dead for a good thirty seconds, but he would not go back to the healing platform.

Tetsuken looked with horror as he saw this, even though he wanted to believe it couldn't be true. "There's no way...CHECK THE SUMMONING CHAMBER!"

"Right away, sir!" Two workers from the control room scrambled out, as they went on their way to find out what happened to Garen and his respective Summoner. When they got there, the door was locked. "There's no use! This thing won't bud-AHHHHHH!" One of the workers screamed loudly, as he looked through the window to see the body of Garen lying on the floor with a rosebud on top of his bloody wound in the game. "What are we supposed to tell the Captain?"

"Snap out of it!" The second worker slapped the first worker right across the face. "No one could interfere with the champion once they've been summoned except for the Summoner. He's surely alive!"

As they said this, the door swung open in front of them, as if it could hear them speak. They looked at each other, before one of them decided to enter the room. To his delight, the Summoner remained intact, but Garen had no pulse. One of the workers

"Thank the gods one of you is alive. Are you awake?"

"Huh…What? Where am I?" The Summoner was disoriented as she woke up. "One second ago I was just talking with Garen before I started to Summon him. What's going on?"

"There's no time to talk. Someone has hacked inside the Institute!"

The Summoner, as they heard this, saw Garen's body right behind them. "NO…NO!" She rushed over to her, and put her hands over his chest. "He can't be dead! Summoner's have a link between them and their respective champion. I should have died with him!"

The workers looked sad, but doubtful of her statement. "While that seems unexplainable, everything that has happened thus far is equally unexplainable. All we know is that Garen lost his pulse. We can only hope he is just in a terrible coma right now."

Tetsuken shouted to the workers, awaiting their reply. "WHAT'S HIS STATUS!?"

"Sir…" The worker gulped, and held a hand onto his chest with pain as he replied. "We think Garen is dead. His Summoner has awoken from her channeling, but she doesn't remember anything."

Tetsuken shook his head in disbelief. _'This…This is a nightmare, right? There's no way that this could happen. Nothing could go this horribly wrong! I have to try harder.'_

Jhin laughed furiously, as he stood beside the corpse of Garen on the rift. "What a beautiful execution. This is only the first act. I only wish that this pleasure could be felt by _more people_!"

The Ionians who came to Garen's side as they watched him die still could not believe what they witnessed. Vi pointed to Jhin in anger. "You're a monster! How could you have so little humanity?"

"Ah, it is the opposite my dear. I am the one with the most humanity, because I embrace the beauty of everything. It is you who lacks humanity to be happy to see your comrade fall in such a glorious manner!"

Vi punched the air around Jhin, and all her attempts at attacking him were useless. Yet, she continued to attack the air endlessly. "God DAMNIT!"

Jhin appeared once again on the main screen. "I promise you that you will see more people die; it is only a matter of time until one of your beloved champions _snaps like a twig_."

Ahri shouted back at Jhin, as she rubbed off tears from her cheek. "What are you talking about? We would never kill each other!"

"Oh? That is most unfortunate. Well, luckily this is still part of the script. I hate to spoil the plot, but you are all trapped here forever, until four of you remain. What's more, if you wish to not kill each other, well…Your people might just do it themselves."

As Tetsuken heard this, he noticed that the walls of the Institute were becoming barraged with angry viewers. He was many floors above the main door, but he could still hear their demands. "OPEN THE FUCKING DOORS, YOU TRAITORS!"

Tetsuken ordered the rest of his workers downstairs. "Reinforce the main gate, don't let anyone enter!"

"We're trying our hardest, Captain!"

"Mark my words, Jhin. I won't let any more people in this Institute or the Rift die."

Jhin disappeared once more from the rift as he watched the cries of the Ionians, as well as the anger of the Noxian and Ionian viewers at the Institute

 _The beginning of every performance is so sweet, because it clenches us into wanting more, and more, and more, until it ends and we all feel an emptiness inside. Just like life, the encore of promises and future endeavors pulls us toward our inevitable fate. My opera will make them_ _ **sing my praise!**_ _'_


	3. Act II - The Ecstasy of Killing

Despair was felt throughout the entirety of the Summoner's Rift that day when Jhin invaded the Institute of War. A chilling had started to envelope most of the champions who had just recently witnessed Garen's death. They started to even think about those who were still left on the Rift.

The champions who represented Ionia and Noxus were not necessarily traditional heads of each country, but a few people who lived inside of the country and selections among some of the strongest people who had competed for years on the rift. Representing Ionia was Ahri, Lucian, Lux, Jayce, Fiora, Yasuo, Sona, and Garen. Representing Ionia was Katarina, Pantheon, Lulu, Vi, Caitlyn, Zed, Soraka, Graves, and Orianna.

There were no immediate words spoken between any of these champions after they started to mourn the death of Garen. To Jhin, they were just another appeal to a larger crowd that he wanted to impress on the outside. As such, Jhin needed to further the script by making his next move. He reappeared on the rift once more, and bowed to the handful of champions in front of him.

"I apologize for the informal introduction, my dear puppets. As the coordinator for our killing game, I should be helpful in the process as well. Even though I know most of you will try to resist my command, I also know some of my words will be received by the ambitious. The rules are very simple indeed – I will continually create motivations for you to kill each other until there are exactly four of you left. If you are able to figure out who a killer was in a recent killing, then I will perform a beautiful execution for the person who was found to be the killer. I know that I have not given you enough material to work with, so I decided to remove all edible foods from the Rift. Until someone dies by one of your hands, you shall be deprived of food."

"Pfft." Graves rejected Jhin's notion of having to eat. The way that the Summoner's Rift worked for protecting their physical bodies was having their energy always at 100% while their respective Summoner's poured their spirit energy into them, so that one side would not gain an extra advantage over another. "We all know this is just a rouse. There's no way that we could feel starvation in the Rift."

Jhin tapped his gun on his own head to insinuate that he couldn't comprehend what Graves said. "Tisk Tisk, Cowboy. What do you think is happening to your Summoners right now?"

"Huh?" Graves realized that some of his strength was escaping his body as he wasn't able to hold up his giant shotgun easily any longer. "What the hell have you done?!"

"Once again, it is not what I have done, but what you have failed to do." Jhin decided that he was done for the time being. He walked away into the distance as he made his final statement. "You are lying to yourselves to keep your systems going. Instead, you must _learn to grow into something new_. I will let you write your own script, even though you know the conclusion is set in place."

"GET BACK HERE!" Graves ran towards Jhin as he threw his shotgun to the side, but he tripped in place and face-planted into the ground. He watched as Jhin disappeared into the distance. "God damn it. There's no way that any of this could be true. It has to be fake!"

The rest of them looked as if their entire spirits had been sapped away. There was no visible sign of hope for anyone, so staying motivated was going to be hard for them naturally. This was one of the only times that they had to contemplate about what they were going to do, so they still had to keep their heads somewhat high.

Ahri tried to make a group discussion centered around rebellion and possible escape. "This situation is not ideal, but we are champions for a reason. We all know how to find the weaknesses of our opponents, whether it be physical, mental, spiritual, or anything else. Although, our best chance for defeating Jhin seems to be escaping him because we can't attack him while we are present on the Rift. If this is the exact layout of the Rift, why don't we see if there is any backdoors or ways to get outside the map?"

"No can do." Pantheon and Vi expressed unfortunate denial to the belief that they could escape. Pantheon explained: "We have already tried to leave the map in regular combat by using my Grand Skyfall and having Vi follow, but the invisible walls are impossible to get around."

Jayce chimed in. "On that note, it seems like this is not exactly the _same Rift_. I noticed that someone of the bushes became more realistic and the river widened. I think that means there might be more space for exploration, so we might as well split up for now and see if there is any striking differences that we can talk about before we start talking about escape."

Ahri nodded her head. "Agreed. Let's just have an Ionia and Noxus group for now."

Their search over the new Summoner's Rift was left with a lot of confusion, since they were so used to battling on the shortened Rift. Now, there was a large valley along the Baron and Dragon pit, as well as an extra cross into the three lanes, which allowed more roaming opportunities. All the champions found few objects, but they clearly saw intricate spaces that could be used for living/sleeping purposes. Unfortunately, they had nothing with them to sleep with. Since they were stuck inside of this Rift for the foreseeable future, then that meant they had to start adapting to their environment. No matter how hard the champions searched, they really could not find any food. It would not take long for them to start feeling the pain of hunger, since they had started losing energy from their champions at a quicker rate.

"It does not seem very favorable for us, does it?" Jayce crossed his arms as he thought about ways that they could get through this unforeseen circumstance. Jayce was a man who used intelligence primarily to get through some of the toughest obstacles, but he was not able to deduce his current situation easily since it was very new and he had to cooperate heavily with the others in order to solve this. Jayce was a genius in all rights; he sometimes refused to rely on others or work with them, often citing that they would just bring him down and make the process slower. This was true to an extent, however he would not be allowed to just ignore everyone else around him, so he decided that he would at least try to get into the heads of other champions. "What do you think we should do, Lux?"

Lux smiled back at him, and laughed a bit. "Being asked such a question by you is really..err…unexpected might I say! I always looked up to you as a great teacher."

"Hah, I wish I could say I was a good role model. I still have too much to learn when it comes to handling younger people." He blushed a bit. "And…well…women…" All the girls around Jayce laughed whole-heartedly.

Lux responded. "I don't think someone like you should be the one worrying about something so trivial like that."

Jayce, who was still blushing, attempted to laugh it off and act like it was nothing. "Oh, OF COURSE! I, the mastermind of Piltover, would not be the smartest man who hit the rift if I could not also unlock the hearts of all women who came across myself! Why, I could capture all your hearts in an instance at just the snap of my fingertips if I wished to!"

While some of the girls such as Ahri and Sona laughed in accordance, the other girls were just amazed at how little Jayce seemed to understand women. Although this did not come to much of a surprise for those who knew Jayce, since he was always cooped up in his own personal laboratory for long hours of the week, and he had little social interaction in his daily life. As such, he did not ever think about how to talk to women.

"I laugh at Jayce, but sometimes I really wish all the men weren't always swooning over me."

"I beg to differ." Lucian went ahead the rest of the pack, and slightly tilted his head over his shoulder as he looked at Ahri. "No charm could ever unlock the hatred that has made a tight grip on my heart ever since I lost Her…"

Ahri refused to believe something like this. She wasn't frustrated, but more or less curious to talk to someone who could communicate to her without being absorbed by her Charm. "I think you're lying, aren't you?" Ahri flipped over her hair, which caused the wind to blow behind her with sparkling charm. Her beautiful and color-filled face was directly in front of Lucian's face. Instead of reacting, Lucian entered into a staring contest with Ahri. After a while, he scoffed and moved on.

"HEY, WHAT GIVES!?" Ahri rushed in front of Lucian once again, now with a frustrated look.

Lucian pushed her out of the way. "Get out my way." The stone cold look he gave Ahri was so emotionless that it made Ahri's face go blank for a full minute before she came to reality.

"Someone…" Then Ahri's ears shot up high. "SOMEONE RESISTED ME!" Ahri was now determined to capture Lucian's heart. She refused to rest until she would get noticed by her. This was useful, because it meant that Lucian could go out searching in the dark since Ahri could light up the area around her with Foxfires. Meanwhile, the others started to fall asleep as the night continued to unwind. Lucian kept moving throughout the entire day, without a fiber in his body telling him to stop.

"I will not rest until the day I die." Lucian made this statement, as he continued to walk along the riverside with Ahri pulling on his leg and yawning from the lack of sleep still. "That means that I won't let other people drag me down."

Ahri gave an innocent puppy-dog look to Lucian as she waited for him to break. Instead of breaking, Lucian decided not to even respond. "I will find Her"

Ahri decided not to follow anymore, and slept on the side of the river with that one thought in her head.

' _Who is that person that Lucian keeps referring to?'_

The morning rose early for the rest of the champions, as the caw crowed twice around the entire rift so loud that it was heard everywhere. Lucian had explored the entire rift, and confirmed with his Ionian group that there was nothing that they could eat. Lucian's stomach growled furiously, but he did not even flinch.

Yasuo rolled over in pain of having no food, while he looked at Lucian with a timidly angry face. "I'm really starting to question if this guy is human."

"If being human means that I succumb to subtle pain like a weakling such as you, then I'd like to not be referred to as a human."

Yasuo got up and took out his sword instantly. "The hell did you say, punk?"

Lux broke them up. "We have to work together, stop!"

In the next moment, they were met by Katarina and Zed. "Morning. Any new details on this place?"

Lucian turned over to them. "There's nothing new here. This is only an expanded Summoner's Rift. I estimate that everyone here will starve to death in approximately three days. I will be the first to admit that I wouldn't lose a wink of sleep from killing one of you Noxians to save Her."

Katarina threw her dagger to the dirt where Lucian was standing. "I like your honesty, but I'd be willing to bet I could take you without these daggers any day of the week."

"Noxian scum." He walked away swiftly.

"Hmph. Zed, let's move." Both Zed and Katarina walked away in the distance. Lux wanted to catch back up to Lucian, but she decided it would be better to try and see if they could join the Ionian forces and Noxus forces to talk out what they should both be doing. She noticed that Katarina and Zed disappeared into a near forest, so Lux went through a small shortcut to make it to them.

"HEYYYY, WAIT UPPPP!" Lux shouted out to them in hoping that she would be heard, but there was no response or new sight of the Noxian champions. Lux was confused as to how both Zed and Katarina were moving away so fast, since it seemed most of the champions were starting to fatigue from lack of food.

The trees around Lux started shaking, as the birds chirped loudly and went off in a large swarm. Suddenly, a large snap was heard by Lux and she looked up to see a dark figure come crashing down. It almost fell on top of Lux, but she was swift enough to dodge it. The second she saw what the figure was, she turned stone cold and yelled at the top of her lungs. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Yasuo came running towards Lux, thinking that she was in trouble. He leaped from a near tree with his sword out and looked around, as he noticed Lux on the ground. It took only a few seconds, but he saw what Lux was looking at – **the dead body of Caitlyn.** "HOLY SHIT!"

Lux's horrified look transitioned into a soft but conscious effort to tell Yasuo what had happened. "I…I came here in search for the Noxians but I was interrupted by this."

"We have to tell Noxus!" The rest of them gathered the entire group of Ionia, informing them of the death of Caitlyn. While they were set out looking for Noxus, they heard Jhin in the background.

' _It seems like the plot is advancing just as I had written it. I hope that this small step towards death will grace you with ecstasy as you get closer to_ _ **THE CLIMAX!**_ '

Yasuo was annoyed with Jhin already. "Fuck that guy, that coward hides in the shadows while he watches people kill others out of their own fear. That is the way of the demon."

Lux attempted to calm them down as they continued to run together. "We have no time to worry about this. We have to find Noxus immediately if we want to enact revenge!"

It took them quite a long time to get all of Noxus together, but soon enough they managed to get all of Noxus together as they explained Caitlyn's death. Jayce had already begun to deduce the case. "It seems that Caitlyn's time of death is undeterminable, but we do know that it was around the time that it was discovered by Luxanna. This is proven by the dry bloodstains that were seen along Caitlyn's body. Her hat was missing, and later found at the top of the Oak tree in the Western Summoner's Rift Jungle."

Kat entered her observation. "Then that means the killer was in the Ionia group, right?"

Yasuo denied this. "I was with the entire group of Ionians while I heard Lux scream out! That statement is impossible!"

Kat rebutted this point. "I wouldn't go that far. It would be easy to make it seem like it was a kill in advance."

Jayce had to accept this fact and contemplate the possibilities. "This is true. The killer could've easily killed a squirrel and used that fresh blood to make the body appear recently dead. They could've also set the tree to collapse at a certain time to frame other people."

Soraka wanted to introduce new evidence. "As a long time medic, I can say for sure that there is no way to easily set up a death such as this. You can see from Caitlyn's deep wounds that she was shanked multiple times, which meant that blood would not stop pouring along her body."

Lux thought about this for a second. "But that confuses me…when I saw the tree limb that broke after Caitlyn fell, it was not even doused with any of Caitlyn's blood. What is the meaning of this?"

Kat put her boot down. "That proves that the murder was in advance, if both those statements are true. We have to suspect Ionia just as much as Noxus now."

Lux was still trying to think this one out. _'But that still seems impossible. I know that Caitlyn weighs more from me…I mean her boobs are huge, but she also carries around that really heavy gun. It was with her at the time of death, so that means…'_ It came to Lux. "Wait, one of those statements are wrong! I distinctly remember hearing the snap as soon as I called out for the Noxians. Even if it was possible to set up in advance Caitlyn's body and the gun, there's no way that the killer could also set up when the tree limb would break in advance!"

Soraka pointed out one thing. "I think that the killer intended to hide Caitlyn's body, since she was up so high."

Lux firmly rejected this. "No way! The killer had to have some motive in framing someone at the scene of the crime!"

Kat rolled over her hair with her dagger. "Unless it was an elaborate plan by you to make you seem innocent!"

"W-What?!"

"I am starting to suspect Lux. She knows too much about how this case went down not to at least assume she is a likely suspect." The other champions around started to chat around and eventually agree that Lux was at least suspect.

Lux intervened once more. "Hold on now, we haven't gone through all of the facts in this killing yet!" She had to stay strong. She thought to herself once more.

' _Something is completely wrong with this case. Whoever the killer is, they are trying to make it seem much simpler and break apart our cooperation. How can I finalize this?'_

Vi decided to add her first thoughts into the case. "There's something logically overlooked here. I think the first thing that should be talked about is who can actually set this crime up without leaving a giant amount of evidence. First, how are we supposed to expect someone like Lux could carry out murder, but also be able to carry Caitlyn's body and gun whilst climbing a tree?"

Katarina pointed at Vi. "There's one big flaw in your stupid logic. No one else was at the scene of the crime until Caitlyn and the tree branch were on the ground, so for all we know Lux could've made it seem like a tree branch collapsed and make it look like she could never do it!"

Lux immediately knew it once Katarina said this who the killer was. "HOLD ON! Katarina, I was trying to follow you through the forest when you first talked to me this morning, but you were too fast for me. You knew Ionia was right behind me, but you didn't know how far. How did you come to the conclusion without being at the scene of the crime that I was the ONLY ONE PRESENT?"

"Er…Lucky guess?"

"As I was saying…" Vi continued as she shrugged once more. "Caitlyn's body is filled with gash wounds, which would only be inflicted by blade-like weapons. Lux does not have such a weapon, but we do know who could carry out such a murder very easily…" Then, all of the champions in unison looked at Katarina.

This time, her expression was furious. "How the fuck can you all expect me after one small detail?! You know who else has blade-like weapons? Pantheon, Fiora, Zed, and Yasuo. FOUR OTHER UNSUSPECTED CHAMPIONS!"

"While that's true…" Vi pointed her fist at Katarina. "There were few people in the jungle that morning. For those other four people to pull off that task, they would at least need to be near the scene of the crime to frame Luxanna, otherwise there would be no point in having the tree collapse."

Katarina was getting even angrier. "Once again, this tree bullshit is FUCKING ILLOGICAL! There's NO reason that whoever set up the crime couldn't have just been really clumsy at hiding the body or not predicting a limb collapse! UNTIL YOU PROVE THAT, THIS IS BULLSHIT!"

"No, you're wrong." Lucian chimed in. "The killer knew that they were going to place the body at that place. We already proved that the oak would've been soaked in blood if Caitlyn was just set up there as if nothing happened, so that means that the person had knowledge of how the Jungle worked. They knew that if they placed the body at that place, then it would've failed one way or another so they set up to look like it was just a natural snap. That tree is strong, so it had to have been brutally cut up in order to snap like a twig."

Pantheon hastily joined with the others to get him out of suspicion. "My spear is deadly, but it could in no way cut up a tree limb!"

Fiora and Zed agreed with him, and shared similar statements.

Yasuo was the only one who didn't have a clear alibi. Katarina jumped on this opportunity. "Yasuo is a wanderer, he knows more of the jungle than I do! He could've had the knowledge of how to setup a murder even before the killing game began!"

"That doesn't add up…" Vi went for one more final blow to this case, and she looked over to Lux. "You should be able to figure out who is the killer based on what you saw at the scene of the crime."

' _The scene of the crime? All I remember is that broken tree branch…WAIT!'_

"Katarina and Zed were up early in the morning, and had no sign of fatigue in them, despite not eating and having their life energy stolen from them."

Vi nodded. "There's something unique about the killing that proves it was Katarina."

Lux slammed both her hands down as she rested the case. "Katarina sustains herself off the blood of her enemies. She lost control of her bloodlust and killed Caitlyn."

Kat and Zed both gasped, as the others unilaterally gazed at them with utmost suspicion. The case had been closed. Soon enough, Jhin's voice was heard from an overhead.

" _Fantastic deduction._ You are correct in this event – Caitlyn's murderer was none other than the Du Couteau girl, **Katarina**. I must say, her lust for blood made me think that she too saw the ecstasy in killing, but her art was _awful._ I have such great disrespect for those who cannot deliver a clean and beautiful kill." Suddenly, Jhin's hologram appeared behind the now frightened Katarina. "It's such a shame too, you interested me the most out of all the champions here. I promise that I will make the lasting image of you absolutely _beautiful_!"

"W-WHAT?! GET AWAY, FREAK!" Katarina ran off into the distance, knowing that she would soon die.

"Running from death? Ironic, considering the brutality of all your murders on the Rift and allegiance to strength above all. It seems all you humans really are the same." Jhin appeared once more in front of Katarina, blocking off her exit. "You cannot escape your finale, dear." With one fellow swoop, he stunned Katarina with a shock blast and held her in place. Jhin looked around to the other champions, who were now circled around Katarina. "I hope you all enjoy the show, because this is still just the _opening act_. Au revoir, Katarina…" Jhin snapped his fingers, and suddenly Katarina felt an intense burning inside her stomach. She was bleeding from the inside, and coughed up an enormous amount of blood. She was on the ground now, and felt something rather large come out of her mouth. It was in the shape of a rose, but it was ticking loudly. Jhin counted down from 4…3…

Lucian immediately knew what it was, and notified the crowd. "FUCK, RUN AWAY FROM THAT THING!" Everyone, still watching, paced away from the scene. 2…1…

 **BOOM**.

A small explosion came from the rose object. When the champions looked over, they saw the dead body of Katarina with a rose growing out of her eye. It was completely trenched with blood, still pouring out of the small petals. Jhin clapped slowly, and laughed.

"The first kill is always the sweetest, isn't it my darling?" He held up Katarina's hand and kissed it.

Lux fell over in fear. "This guy is insane…"

Zed was overcome with distraught at the sight, but he felt entranced in the image of Katarina's dead body. He started to see lights shine from the rose now growing out of Katarina's body. Though he had been an assassin, he had never seen a sight of a dead body that he would ever consider 'pleasant.' Yet, here before Zed was the corpse of a long time comrade that fought alongside him for so long, and he felt something more than just fear. He felt…love. Love for the chaos, the horror, the image that he was witnessing. Jhin walked over to him, and whispered, "You saw it, didn't you?"

Zed gulped. He couldn't take it anymore. "I have something I need to say…"

Everyone looked over to Zed.

"I helped Katarina kill Caitlyn."

Yasuo shouted at him. "YOU WHAT?! TRAITOR!"

Jhin laughed uncontrollably once more. "The irony of this scene continues to just kill me. The deadly assassin Zed feels troubled for someone dying now, while the wanderer of Ionia who was called a traitor by his own people now calls another person a traitor for coming clean. Please, make it stop!"

Zed continued regardless. "I was under a lot of pressure yesterday night. I knew that people were going to be looking at me first to make the first move, but I was not compelled to kill anyone here, because I knew it was real now. The assassin instinct in me really only kicked in after I entered the rift, since it has been so long that I willingly killed someone on the outside. Thus, I wanted to stop...but Katarina promised me that I wouldn't have to kill anyone if I just helped her get rid of the opposition. I helped orchestrate the kill by getting Caitlyn to come to the woods, and then I carried her body to the outskirts of the jungle until this morning when we got Lux to start following us. All of that was me, except for the kill…"

Lux felt tears roll down her eyes. She felt sympathy for Zed's position, but still had anger in her heart. "How could you do something? You wished to reform, but you let someone else take control of you again?"

"I know…" Zed came up to Jhin. "I want to make sure that I don't let that enticement grab anyone else down into this pit that I am in. Jhin, please execute me."

Lux held her hand out, and attempted to rush to Zed, whilst screaming, "N-NO!"

"As you wish. See the beauty of death on the other side, _Shadow master_." Jhin shot a blast from his pistol right upside the head of Zed. The helmet that Zed was wearing was cracked thin, while blood came rushing out of it fast. Once more, a rose was growing out that small crack just right above Zed's eye. Once Zed fell over, Jhin disappeared. He decided that he spent too much time on the rift already, and wanted to see more of the killing game happen outside of his reach.

Lux fell over to Zed's body, and shook him up and down. She hoped that she could hear one more response from him, even though Lux knew that Zed was already gone. Lucian came to Lux's side. "I'm sorry Lux, but we have to go. It's over."

"Why is this happening to us…WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!"

Lucian knew the kind of pain Lux was in, but Lucian's pain was on a much larger scale so he still lacked sympathy.

Jhin made one final announcement before the Act ended. "Thanks to your cooperation, I shall reciprocate and let you all eat. You will find lodges in the River, both North and South for the Ionians and Noxians. They are filled with food, beverages, and a small bed to sleep on. I hope you all continue to put on a show, **_your audience is loving it!_** _"_

The halls outside the Institute of War were still filled with angry citizens, both from Ionia and Noxus. At the outskirts of the hill where the stream was being shown was Katarina's step-brother, Talon. Seeing someone so close to him die did feel painful for him, but it gave him a renewed spirit for war. "This battle has spawned a new motive for war against those scum in Ionia. Once more, Noxus will set ablaze all the lands that wish to oppose us." He got on one knee, and slightly bowed to mockingly pay allegiance to Jhin.

 _My plan is nothing short of done still. I want to see other people be ensconced in my work, while I show everyone the beauty of this killing._


	4. Act III - Heroes always die

The day was early for the remaining champions on the Rift. The few who could not sleep included Lucian, of course, and those who could still not get over what they just saw last night. It wasn't the horror of death that got to them, but the planned assassination attempt that involved two people whom the other champions put their trust into.

As such, there was a large movement for the people in Ionia to separate and keep their eyes on those in Noxus, so that they could not plan together like before. The Noxian champions agreed, since most of them could care less what group they were a part of. Lux started the drafting process.

"I would like to be with Lucian, Vi, Graces, Jay-"

"BACK OFF HE'S MINE!" Ahri jumped in front of her with an angry yet childish look as if she just got a toy taken from her. Lux was confused by this.

"Aren't you more interested in Lucian instead of Jayce?"

Ahri tilted her head and twiddled her thumbs. "Welllllll…it's not like I don't want Lucian to like me…but I mean Jayce is…" She looked over to Jayce slightly and put her hands in her blushing face while she laughed uncontrollably. Jayce didn't know how to feel, but before he knew it Ahri's hands were around his stomach. "I want my own group!"

Lux sighed. "Fine…I guess I need to take a Noxian representative so…I'll take Lulu."

"Ha!" Lulu jumped on top of Lux's head. "We'll be the best, most beautiful group ever!"

Lux was disgusted from hearing any variation of the word _beauty_ due to Jhin's use of it. She tried to get over it as easily as she could, but it was always in her head and made her think back to all the recent killings that happened.

"I need Noxians? Hmm…" Ahri leaned over to Jayce. "Who should we pick?"

Jayce already knew who he wanted more information on. "I think we should take the two duelists that I think are the most suspicious champs going forward. Fiora and Pantheon."

Both of them looked a bit angered by Jayce's comment, but they still went over to their team. It was hard not to be bitter since they were almost caught up with the most recent case, so they were going to already get little privacy for the remainder of their time together.

The last group of champions, Soraka, Orianna, Yasuo, Sona, gathered around. Yasuo commented, "It feels like we are the kids who were picked last for the soccer team, eh?"

The rest of them laughed, except for Orianna. Instead, she held a blank expression on her face. "I do not know what it feels like to be in a group at all. I hope that we will all get along just fine."

They were not sure how to feel about Orianna, since she was just an invention and couldn't really display human emotions. Regardless, all of the groups went out together to their cabins. They had a round table just outside the lake right by their houses, so they decided they would eat there.

In Lux's group, there wasn't a lot of talk…except for Lulu.

"WEEEEEEEEE-HAHAHAHAHA!" She twirled her magical wand on top of Lux's head and balanced herself on top of it. "Keep going!"

"I'm glad someone is keeping the mood well." Lux felt relief that not everyone was distraught with fear and hopelessness just yet. It made her feel calmer and got her to stop delving into the past.

Vi tried to get Lucian to start talking. "Why are you always so tense, even in calm situations?"

"I have my reasons to not trust you people."

Vi felt insulted. "Are you saying we're on the same level of those killers?"

Lucian quickly replied. "It's not a matter of comparison, Vi. It just means that anyone here could have a killer intent, me included. No one is excluded from this killing game, so we could all eventually break no matter how strong our wills are."

Graves chimed in. "I can feel where he's coming from. When you grow as old as we are, we begin to see the faults of all the champions. There really can't be a _perfect person._ "

Lucian closed his eyes and held his hand on his head. "You people really don't understand, do you?"

Lux tried to calm him down. "We could understand better if you helped us figure out what you are feeling?"

"What I'm feeling?" Lucian pulled out both of his guns and shot them in the air repeatedly. "Some call it madness, some call it anger, I call it resolve."

The rest of the group was confused. "Resolve?"

Lucian put away his guns. "Resolve to purify the demons of the world."

The group didn't really get any new advances into what Lucian was talking about, so they just kept moving on.

In Ahri's group, there was a lot of talking going on. Most of it included Jayce inspecting Pantheon and Fiora.

"A thick blade like this must've taken years to create. It's combat utility is top notch and leaves no noticeable scratches. This spear is the same, although you should really stop throwing it everywhere."

Pantheon stared deeply into his eyes. "Are you mocking my fighting, Piltover boy?"

Jayce laughed, and his glasses flashed with light. "I would never mock your fighting, although it seems an uncivilized creature stuck in the barbaric age such as yourself would think this is meta. Let me inform you of something – Sparta doesn't need any more bakers."

Pantheon was ready to jump at him, but Fiora blocked him.

"NO ONE WAS SUPPOSED TO KNOW OF MY BAKING CAREER!"

Ahri laughed, and then tripped over as she was walking. She held up her knee and let out a fake yelp. "Jayyyyyce, I can't walk anymore. Please carry me!"

Jayce didn't even notice Ahri, he was still staring at Pantheon. He took out his cannon gun from his back, and put it down. "If you really want to spar with me, just say the word. I'll give you a calculated defeat!"

Ahri jumped on back of Jayce's back and made him fall over. "I SAID I CAN'T WALK!"

Jayce got up slowly, and sighed. When Ahri wrapped her hands around his neck, Jayce felt Ahri's breasts push up against his back and he let out a small whelp. "I…I, well me being the gentleman that I am…I couldn't possibly pass up th-this opportunity!"

Ahri pulled over to his ear, and whispered, "I didn't know you were a tits guy! Hehe…" His face started turning bright red, and he just started walking towards their houses while the rest followed.

The other group was quite strange, since none of them knew each other very well. Sona was a resident of Ionia, but she wasn't exactly a citizen there. She did god's work and created songs to help purify people's souls. Soraka lived in the Astral Grave, which was directly connected to Ionia. She made medicines and helped people in wars, but she never directly fought anyone before. Yasuo, although an Ionian, hadn't been accepted back into Ionia ever since his departure. His framing in the last battle between Noxus and Ionia ruined his reputation and made him find his own home now in the Summoner's Rift. Orianna was the biggest question mark, since they didn't know her origin or who created her. All they knew was that she was a bot that was tested in the beginning builds of the Summoner's Rift. They didn't even know if they could really trust Orianna, but they didn't feel fear around her. She was the only Noxian representative that didn't feel threatening.

That group had one single conversation. Yasuo asked Orianna where she came from. Orianna said, "I do not know. I think that this is my home, because this is all I have knowledge of."

Yasuo shrugged. "Can't you remember anything outside of the Rift? Surely you aren't just a bot; you have another form outside the Rift."

"Oh, is that so?" Orianna was hard strung to figure out anything about her past, because she could only compute so much knowledge. All she remembered was how to fight.

Sona swiftly ended the conversation. "I think that we just need to give her time, Yasuo."

They continued to walk all the way to the houses, and the three teams met each other soon. They got some food from their houses and brought it to the big round table. They sat next to their respective members in their group. Jayce was in between Fiora and Pantheon, which made Ahri upset. Next to Ahri was Lucian, who was eating silently. She tried to get him to talk.

"Are you never tired, Lucian?"

"I don't let human vulnerabilities wear me down. I can't remember the last time I felt the need to sleep."

Ahri actually felt a little concerned for him. "If you don't get good sleep, you are going to hurt yourself. Please don't overdo it, Lucian."

Lucian sharply put his fork down. "Why?" Lucian opened his eyes, which were filled with bags from lack of sleep in the past days. "So that they can take away someone else from me while I can still fight?"

Ahri held her hand under Lucian's shoulder. "We all have limitations to an extent."

Lucian slapped Ahri's hand. "THOSE LIMITATIONS LET INNOCENT PEOPLE DIE. MONSTERS LIKE YOU WOULDN'T CARE IF MORE PEOPLE DIED!" Lucian pulled out of his chair, but fell over on his back. Ahri rushed to his side. "I…er, fuck. I swore to myself I wouldn't show weaknesses in front of others until we met again…"

"You HAVE to get sleep. I'll take you to your room." Ahri picked up Lucian and took him to his room. The rest of them sat and pondered upon everything Lucian was talking about.

Pantheon initiated the group talk. "He's surely got to be the next traitor. He's a psychopath!"

Lulu agreed. "Let's turn him into a bunny and chase him down a rabbit hole!"

Fiora drew her sword. "Or maybe we should just _get rid of him_."

Lux banged her fist on the table. "STOP IT, EVERYONE! You're letting the madness get to you. Jhin wants you all to be mad and start killing each other. If we just keep fighting on, we won't lose more people."

Ahri came back to the table, and went over to her team. "Hey everyone, it's getting a bit late now. The day in this place seems to last a quarter of a regular day in Valoran. Let's just get sleep and group up sometime in the morning again."

Before anyone could say another word, Jhin once again appeared in front of all the newly formed groups. "My apologies for the late interaction, but I hope we can end the day on a fun note. Besides, now that you are all in different groups, there will be newfound trust and doubt in your fellow champions. That's beside the point, let's skip to the conclusion…The new motivation is upon us. You see, the limitations that you feel on this Rift are truly a compound of the life that your respective Summoners are exerting to keep you alive. If you wish to stay here for too long, they just might die a sad and lonely death from flowing too much energy into the Rift."

The groups gasped at the thought, because they never realized how much their actions were affecting people on the outside. They wanted to know if their people were still okay, and that there were not any rash decisions made by leaders in their continents. Each champion has a specific reason for why they chose their Summoner. Indeed, all of the Summoners undo a very long trial to prove their worth to the Champions around Valoran and have a one in a lifetime chance of being able to bond with them in a special way. In a sense, their Summoners were like younger siblings to them. As such, all of them were disgusted by the thought of them dying out slowly due to their inaction.

Jhin walked off and disappeared into the night with one last message. "It has already been three days here; I imagine that your Summoners have about 24 more hours until they die of spirit drain. After the first killing is sighted, I will nourish their spirits and protect them from outside harm so long as you continue to cooperate. Well then, get a nice long rest! Remember… _art is not a rush._ "

Even though the champions wanted to stay together and talk about what they were going to do next, they could already feel people silently judging others and thinking about who the next traitor will be. There would be no point in staying up now and trying to make a new plan. They all had to get rest.

When Lux went into her room, she found a diary sitting right on top of the table beside her bed. It was completely blank, but had a pen inside. She decided to write down her thoughts, knowing that surely no one else would be able to access it.

' _Day: 3 – Time: 19:42:00_

 _I'm stuck inside this horrible place with the champions that I have fought alongside for many of years, but now I feel that I am truly on the end of the other barrel. I feel frustrated, but I also feel like I must continue to keep working and strive toward a better future for everyone here. I don't want to see more of my friends die…I can't even think of what it will mean for the future of Ionia if I cannot protect the people who have put their faith in me on these battlegrounds. Even now, I still have hope that people are watching and rooting in favor of justice._

 _I refuse to kill anyone, even if it means that I could save my dear little Alice. She is innocent, but that does not make my friends on this Rift guilty! I have to be able to persevere through this and find out a way to beat Jhin. I know that I can count on the likes of Lucian, Graves, Lulu, and Vi to keep their spirits high in the midst of this bloody battle._

 _Well…until then…I must forge onward.'_

Lux fell asleep immediately, but could still feel cold chills down her spine every time that she even had a remote thought about Jhin, or her Summoner Alice. Her dream was filled with memories of her time at the Ionian Academy when she was introduced to a class full of students who were applying to be Lux's Summoner. Every single candidate was very strong, and had a great depth of knowledge in spirit prowess. However, the one that stood out to her was more of a quiet one. Alice was the youngest in her class, at the age of only 13 while the rest of the Summoners were at least at the age of 15. Alice spent most of her days in the Institute of War just reading books instead of harnessing her spiritual powers, because she fell in love with books and the stories of champions such as Lux at her time in the Ionian Orphanage. She often got picked on by the rest of the class for being too much of a bookworm. What Lux saw in Alice was a little girl who wanted nothing more than to use her knowledge of the world to help people, and Lux thought this was admirable for such a young girl. When Lux was growing up, she was in a similar situation. She was never proven on the battlefield until she became a champion, and even then she was still more of a supportive role than a typical fighter or carry champ. Alice truly became a good friend of Lux, and she put all her trust into Lux. It made Lux almost feel guilty she was just nearly ready to let her go…

Morning rose quickly, and Graves knocked on Lux's door. "Lux, we need to talk."

Lux slowly rose, and got out of her bed to the door. "What is it?"

Graves put out his cigar. "I reckon that our group is going to meet with Fiora's group and talk about plans for the evening. I was sparring with Fiora earlier today when she told me that she still doesn't feel comfortable around the people in her group."

Lux laughed momentarily at the thought of Fiora having to deal with Ahri being all over Jayce, while Pantheon just went on and on about his dream of being a baker. At the same time, Lux looked over to her left to notice her clock. "You sparred earlier today you said? It's 6 A.M.!"

"Yeah…" Graves lit another cigar. "When you get to my age, sometimes you just want to get up real early and make the most of the day. Fiora on the other hand had nothing going for her, so she decided to come search for things to do around here. We found a good place to joust."

"Well, are we going to go see them now?"

Graves thought about it, with his mind still set on going back into the sparring ring. "We could go over there for now and see what they are up to. It'd be much better than having to check up on that other group…"

"That's true." Lux thought about the people in the other group. All those champions weren't the type to be traitors, but they also were such unknown factors outside of their personality that they always had the smallest line of suspicion around them. "I guess we should go then."

Graves and Lux marched onward to the hut that Fiora's group had established. As they got there, they noticed that Ahri wasn't all around Jayce for once. Instead, she was mending Lucian's wounds while Vi and Lulu were talking with Pantheon and Jayce. They all seemed to mesh fairly well together, but of course there were still funny interactions between all of them.

"I still don't think I need sleep." Lucian tried to open his eyes, but Ahri put his hand over his forehead and tried to calm his spirit.

"You're using too much energy right now. At this rate, you might become unconscious. You're going to sleep, that's an order!"

"Like hell if I'll take orders from a Fox girl…"

Ahri crossed her arms. "Excuse me?!"

Lux came over to them, along with Graves. She also put her hand on Lucian's forehead. "Oh my, you really are burning up a lot of your spirit energy." Lux sat beside Lucian and took out a couple of potions. "If you drink these up, you should be well in no time. But you have to get rest!"

Lucian sat up straight for a little bit and drank both potions. He looked over to Lux and smiled. "Anything for a beautiful little lady!"

Lux blushed heavily, but she looked over to Ahri and thought that steam was going to come shooting out of her cat ears. Instead, she had a long smile on her face. "You think you've got to me, but I figured you out…hahahaha…" Ahri ran over to Lux and whispered into her ear. Lux whispered back to her and Ahri's ears shot straight up. She walked away and winked at Lucian. "We'll be seeing each other very soon!"

Lucian fell over and went back to sleep.

Lux walked over to the big table that the rest of the champs were at. "So, what are we planning on doing?"

Graves lit another new cigar, and crossed his arms. "We haven't found any advances that could make us get out of here. It doesn't look promising."

Jayce started to contemplate. "We ruled out getting rid of someone who appears to be a traitor, and we can't exactly escape. What are the odds that we could break out?"

Fiora agreed with Jayce. "We cannot rule out this last possibility before we move to murder. There's a line of boulders blocking off the exit from both the podiums of the red and blue side on this Rift. It is possible that there is a mechanic that is being manipulated inside of them that keeps us from exiting the map."

Jayce held up his fist. "Then let's get to it! My group will go to the southern end-"

"Hold it." Pantheon stood up from the log that he was sitting in. "We should all take a break for a while. If we let the stress get to us right now, who knows what else could go awry?"

Lux agreed. "I am too tired to even tap into my spirit powers. We have a game plan; we just need to make sure we are all ready for it."

So, the champions dispersed. Ahri and Jayce stayed back with the already asleep Lucian. Lux went back to sleep in her home. Graves, Fiora, Vi, Lulu, Pantheon ran into the third group while they were collecting fruits for a big dinner later on that night. It helped them be at ease seeing their group working together even though they've been out of the loop and a bit disregarded by the rest of the champions. The third group didn't mind since they were used to being the outliers. After a short discussion they all dispersed once more. The groups agreed to meet when the sun went down, and it was exactly twenty minutes from that time at this point in the day.

The first person to find their way back along the path was Yasuo, who heard an echo from a long while away from what sounded like Fiora. Yasuo knew from a short time that he spent with Fiora that she was really attached to nature and could speak to birds. It made sense that Fiora would try to go on a nature walk to calm her nerves, but Yasuo noticed something was wrong with the pitch and the movement of the animals. He heard a small _POP_ noise from the distant, and saw that the birds were flying away from Fiora instead of right to her. Yasuo attempted to catch up by speeding up. He tripped over something bulky, and went rolling downward until he was right in front of Graves.

"Whoa, don't scare me like that boy!"

"Aha, you as well Graves." Yasuo kept on going forward, but he noticed the echo-ing stopped. In fact, he could no longer hear any of the birds. They all flew in the opposite direction.

"What's going on around here?" Graves looked over his shoulder and heard a distant scream for help. He got Yasuo to follow him.

There…they set their sights upon Ahri flooding her eyes with tears. When they approached her, they noticed Ahri was holding someone.

"No…fucking…way…"

Ahri was holding the dead body of Fiora

"SHIT, NO!" Yasuo immediately went over to her other side while trying to console Ahri. "Don't let it get to you. We can call Soraka!"

"No…it's too late. She has no pulse."

Yasuo was extremely angered, and he pulled out his sword and started slashing logs to bits and pieces. "JHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNN!"

In just a moment, the hologram of Jhin appeared once more in front of all of them. He noticed Fiora was dead, and briefly laughed. "What a surprise, it didn't even take a full day for someone to pull the trigger. I only wish I was there to watch the elaborate execution; I just want to see the adrenaline rush of the killer after they finished their performance. It really is a feeling like none other!"

Yasuo clenched his sword and put it back. "Shut…up." All of them were holding their sides trying not to show fear.

"Oh, you people disgust me. Instead of being happy that you're still alive in the most dangerous killing game yet, but you act like now you're all deeply beloved friends to each other. Why is it that when a heart stops beating that you feel anguish, Yasuo? Don't you love to see the blood of your enemies after you finish shanking out every last bit of energy they possess? You have become someone you are not."

Ahri held Yasuo beside him, and warmed his cold spirit. "We don't need your bullshit, you freak. Leave us alone so we can just get through this god damned accusation."

Jhin bowed. "As you wish, madam. Besides, I know that our dance with death won't end _too soon_!" Jhin disappeared from the rift, and Ahri gathered around everyone to the scene of the crime once more. Soraka did her usual death report.

"It seems like Fiora was struck with something, or perhaps shot. There is a big gaping wound in her chest, and it seems like she just bled out. This was most likely planned, since there aren't a lot of unusual marks around anywhere else in her body. She didn't struggle at all it seems…she just straight up died."

Jayce went ahead and shot out his theory. "If it's a gun, it's either Lucian or Graves!"

Vi hit him on the shoulder. "You have a gun-like weapon too, smartass! That's also not the only possibility. Someone could've assassinated her from behind and disappeard without a trace."

Yasuo denied that. "Impossible. Take it from the person whose had to kill with a sword for many years. You can't just stab someone through the heart without any sort of negative reaction and get away with it. You leave bloodstains, you could miss, you could even get caught by the person's last breath."

Lux sat down and thought. "There might be a variable we are missing. If it's a gun, then it should've been obvious to anyone inside the jungle who did it by the sound of their gun."

Yasuo sat up again. "I think me and Graves were the only ones in the jungle, but the only thing I heard was a slight pop. After that, the birds rushed out.

"Heh, that means I have an alibi. I think that means we can look at Lucian or Jayce next!"

Lucian gave Graves a deathly stare. "Are you tempting me?" He got out his gun and pointed it at Graves head. Everyone began to freak out.

"I knew you were a traitor."

 _BAM_

Lucian, instead of shooting graves, shot his other gun straight up. It sounded more like a jolt of lightning than a pop. Even from afar, the sound didn't really change.

"That good enough evidence, cowboy?"

Graves sighed. "Guess we need to see Jayce's weapon next."

Jayce fired off a proton blast with his cannon, but it sounded so surreal that no one could possibly mistake that. "The future doesn't sound like _pop_ , it sounds more like _SWOOOOOOSHIWOOOOSHIBAAAAASHIMAAAAA_!"

Yasuo couldn't understand it. Graves was clearly the only one in the jungle besides him, and he knew that he didn't do it. There was one small variable missing…

Lux immediately shot up. "WHERE'S CAITLYN'S GUN?!"

The entire group went silent. The popping noise that Yasuo heard definitely matched that of Caitlyn's rifle. But the problem with that was that now everyone could be suspected since it's not exactly hard to set up killing someone with a long range rifle.

Lux sighed. "We just went back to square one now…"

Yasuo got up, and clenched his fist. He solved the mystery. "No, there's only one possible person who could've done this." Yasuo pointed his sword at Graves, nearly touching his skin. "The traitor is **Graves**."

"Now hold on son, I was with you when Fiora was dead. You know I only carry around my shotgun on me, carrying two guns at once ain't my style." He gave Lucian another dirty look with that statement. "Besides, I reckon you could be just as suspect."

"I know it was you. Fiora was on a nature walk when she was walking back, and she gathered the birds around her. The _Pop_ sound wasn't from you killing Fiora, because you made sure no one else could hear that. It would be very inconvenient if there were other stragglers. The birds came to Fiora's dead body from the echoes of her song, but if people noticed the birds were coming to your location then you would be found out. So you shot Cait's gun once more to get the birds to drive away south…RIGHT IN MY DIRECTION!"

Graves couldn't believe what he was hearing. Something to this caliber seems to be out of the nature of a champion like Graves. He wanted to teach people to grow up strong and fight alongside people whom he trusted. He even sparred with Fiora multiple times, and wanted her to be his partner in this entire process. Graves let out a small whimper, and confessed.

"You got me…I killed her."

"Why…Why did you go through with it?"

Graves threw down his gun and fell to his knees. "I can't let my ol' feller die on the other side. I just…can't…"

Ahri's ears fell down because she already knew what graves was talking about. "Your Summoner…"

"Yeah, little timmy. When I was still a bandit back in Piltover, I came across a young boy who got gambled out of all his money. He felt cheated, so he had to steal money from the bar I was drinking at. I caught Timmy trying to steal my tip, and scolded him hard…" Graves started to really break down now. "I learned that two thugs from that bar killed his parents, and he had been forced to live on his own for four years at the age of 9. He did anything to make ends meet, even if it meant that he had to lose his soul. I tried to tell him 'the worst thing a man can do is let other people abuse their fortitude. You gotta be a strong feller to survive in this world.' I told him that I would change him, and become a new fatherly figure to him. My passion for that boy…made me become the monster that he set out to get away from…what kind of fucking father am I?"

"Au contraire." Jhin came to his backside and had a small clap. "You showed your boy what it takes to be a man. You can't just let people abuse you by saying that they will kill your dearly beloveds and sit back and watch. Your performance was beautiful, even if it was never meant to be the finale. Every act in the opera of life is a unique one, but for you…the show is over."

"Just get it over with…"

Jhin replied. "Well, it is high noon. I think you know what that means, don't you, cowboy?"

Jhin stepped away from him, and counted in his head. Before anyone else knew it, he flipped over his gun and shot from behind his shoulder. " **FOUR**!"

The final shot pierced Graves, and an explosion went off at his feet.

Jhin disappeared, while saying, "Marvelous, I say…Absolutely MARVELOUS!"

Lux and Ahri both tried hard to hold back and console Yasuo. Even though Yasuo and Graves only knew each other very little, he was brought to tears from the story that Graves gave since it meant that he wasn't just seeking murder for the sake of murder. He had a purpose for killing people he held close, just as Yasuo had to in his lifetime.

Lucian put away his guns, and came by Yasuo's side. "I know you hate him, but I want to the be one to kill Jhin once we get out of this bloody Rift."

"I don't care anymore…" Yasuo struggled to stay up. "If it means those close to me keep dying, how can I keep going on like this?"

 _~To see every person who think was trash…now shine like a star in the night…Now I daresay that is the meaning of artistry blooming. If I can cultivate an embracement for death inside that wanderer…the possibilities never end, hahahahahahahaha….~_


	5. Act IV - The Performance that Kills

(Fair warning - this chapter has explicit details of killings)

Outside the rift, there was a similar feeling of despair felt by all the soldiers of the Institute of War and Tetsuken. The only difference was that they had to sit and watch as the champions they once adored started killing each other. Jhin had setup the main camera to watch all angles of the rift and close in on any of the killings that had happened. Talon was there to witness Katarina kill Caitlyn, as well as Katarina being killed to Jhin's bloody bomb. The riots that came after the killing game started had slowed down, but this was not a reassurance for Tetsuken. He immediately called the High Elders of Ionia after the most recent killing had happened to discuss the future of Ionia.

"I am trying my hardest, Elder Bishou. The riots that were breaking out have calmed down and we have been able to restore some faith in the remaining champions of Ionia."

Elder Bishou had the unfortunate displeasure of witnessing the entire killing game thus far. Even seeing Noxians like Katarina who he had personally fought when he was a soldier in Ionia's army really got to him. He wanted to bring back the peace that was felt in Valoran before Noxus attacked Ionia. Jhin was going to be a major obstacle in that goal.

"Tetsuken…I hope you know the consequences of this killing game if more innocent Ionian lives are taken." Bishou slammed his fist on his desk, leaving a large imprint of his fist. " **I will terminate you**."

"Y-Yes, I understand, High Elder! I only ask that you keep the people of your country safe, and make no hasty decisions in case something happens. For all we know, this killing game could still just be a simulation. We have not confirmed any deaths on the other side thus far!"

"You have heard my orders, Tetsuken. If you fail, I will not hesitate to send reinforcements to end this 'game' myself. That is all." Bishou hung up.

Tetsuken couldn't waste any more time. "I know that Bishou will have my head first if I cannot make another move. I have to see what I can do for those champions still left." He went inside the tech room where his soldiers were being forced to spectate the killing game. "Let me use the in-game mic."

"But sir!"

"THAT'S AN ORDER!" He did not hesitate at yelling at one of his own men after all the distress he had to deal with already this day. He tapped into the communications of the Rift, and let a small message that the champions could hear.

' _Listen, comrades…I know that it all seems hopeless and that there is no fighting back, but this man that you are against is nothing more than a hoax and a psychopath. All his predictions thus far are nothing more than a rouse to get you riled up. In fact, no one has died on the other side! All the killings that have happened are just to make your people mad. Stay calm, and I will guide you out of this.'_

Even though the situation on the rift was still troubling after having to haul an angry Yasuo back to his house after witnessing the death of Graves, many champions managed to crack a smile and wipe the tears off their running eyes.

Soraka held her hands high together. "He is right. Where there is a small glimmer of light, there is a shining star waiting to reach out to us. We must hold on to this trust that our people have in us, even after everything they have also gone through!"

Lux smiled back. "Seeing you all happy makes me feel warm inside, no matter what situation we are in!"

~ _Is that REALLY how it's going to be? Do they wish to disobey my orders after being graced with my beauty? I must re-write the next script slightly…and unfortunately… ~_

Jhin appeared quickly before the rest of the champions. "Let's not forget the script, everyone! I know you all will continue to cooperate to the sound of these new motives!"

Ahri gave Jhin a dark and smug look. "You may think we are weaker after all these deaths, but in reality we have only gotten stronger. Our bonds will never be broken, even if it kills us!"

"What if it meant freedom? Power, fame, money, strength, everything that you champions seek on this rift but given for the small fee of a little killing?"

Lux backed up Ahri, with a confident look. "You won't win anymore. Everyone's struggle here is a struggle that we all share and we refuse to give in any longer!"

Jhin sighed, putting his virtual right hand onto his mask. "Well, every person is brought to the edge of the cliff through certain alternatives. I do hope I don't have to go there…oh who am I kidding, I would want nothing more than that smug look to be replaced with the fearful dread of seeing another killing and knowing there is no hope. No matter what happens, I always get what I want. The longer you wait only fill me with _more pleasure!_ "

Jhin disappeared.

None of the champions listened to anything that Jhin said. Their resolved strengthened, even though it seemed that Yasuo was starting to feel the madness. Lux visited him the second after Jhin left to talk with him about what happened.

 _Knock Knock_

"Come in…"

Lux entered the door, to see Yasuo in his bed drinking down a large cup of alcohol.

"I'm sorry that you had to see what everyone else did today, it obviously affects people in different ways. I know you are really strong, so for something like that to hit you so hard…I just wanted to know if there was any outlier significance to it."

Yasuo burped and put down his drink. "I guess I could talk about it. I trust you a lot."

Lux put on a bit of an annoyed face. "Who do you not trust still? We've all been here for the same amount of time and seen the same people die!"

"That's not really it. It's just…" Yasuo put his head down towards the floor. "Well you see, I have a lot of trust issues. You know, I trusted in the people of Ionia. I trusted that they would see through the trial that I was going to have with them…I trusted in the people that I loved, that I worked with, that I drank with, that I sparred with, that…meant so much to me. After that death penalty came from the High Elder himself, they all turned their back on me. My girlfriend, my close childhood friends, and…" Yasuo broke out in tears, as Lux got closer to him on his bed. "My…flesh and blood…"

"Your brother Yone, right?"

"Yes…" Yasuo stood up now, still with tears going down his face. Lux gave him a small handkerchief to blow his nose. "He was my only family after the faction that was built apart of my family had died to Noxus. So, you could say that seeing someone like Graves put that kind of trust into someone he loved so much only to be turned on and forcibly kill his friends…it just reminded me of that day…"

 _'Your time is up, brother.'_

 _'Please don't do it, Yone. You've been deceived.'_

 _'You know I must follow the law of Ionia.'_

 _'THE LAW SHOULD NOT COME BEFORE OUR FAMILY!'_

 _'I cannot call anyone who breaks the law a part of my family. Perish, Yasuo.'_

 _'Brother…'_

 _The feeling of Yasuo, standing there next to his dead brother's body. 'Guilt, Anguish, Deception…all for a fucking misconception…they made me kill my best friend…'_

"I can see why you would have trust issues after that. It's just an awful feeling I'm sure. But Yasuo, you have to realize something now."

"What?"

Lux stood up, and held his hand up. "We are your family now. We live together, we eat together, we sleep together, and…sometimes, we die together. I know you feel alone, but you aren't. You are with us."

"…" Yasuo couldn't reply. The shock of everything that had happened made him lose faith in the people around him. "If that's true, why do we kill each other?"

"It's no different than your situation. We don't want to kill our family, but sometimes we're brought to torment by external factors and have to do it." Lux managed to get his attention. She crossed her arms. "If you don't want to see another family perish…then stand up and fight!" With that, Lux left Yasuo at his house since the day was coming to a close. The recent death of Graves put a halt to the plan of breaking out of the Rift since Graves was an integral part to that. For now, they just needed to wind down.

The day passed, and now everyone went back to their groups. They met up in the morning for breakfast. Lux went over to Yasuo's group and hugged him. "Are you feeling better?"

Yasuo felt warm, and smiled. "Yes, I think I'll be fine now."

Meanwhile, the rest of the champions really did all feel well together. No one was in a bad moon, or felt like they would be betrayed by anyone sitting beside them. Even though it was early in the morning, Ahri was already going at it with Lucian and Jayce.

"Which one of you boys want to sit next to me today?" She let out a slight purr that usually made all men near her faint. Instead, it just made Jayce even more ridiculously shy around her. As for Lucian…well, he didn't really notice. He had started eating by the time that Ahri was waiting for a reaction. She sighed once more, and forcefully sat by Lucian by shoving Orianna out of the way.

"Sorry, Ori! This has to be done today."

"What task is there to do?"

"Oh, nothing for you, silly!"

"Oh, I see. I will continue my conversation at another table."

Lucian stood up to throw away the last half of his food so that he didn't have to sit by Ahri, but Ahri was already on his backside. "Don't you want to eat with me?"

"I usually throw food to wild animals, not eat with them."

Ahri winked at him. "If you're lucky, you'd get to see just how _wild_ I can really get!"

Lucian was already on his way back to his lodge. "Not interested."

Once more, Ahri sighed in the face of defeat. "I guess I'll just have to talk to other people." She noticed Lux talking with Lulu and Pantheon about a giant laser that she was planning on building to automatically fire from her turrets in mid lane. Lux indicated that she always got exhausted from manipulating so much light from her staff.

Lulu jumped in on the occasion. "Lux, I betcha my staff is better than yours!"

Lux laughed. "You're on, kiddo!"

"Hey, knock off the kid jokes! I'm short and adorable, but I don't hesitate to turn anyone who gets in my way into a _delicious strawberry cupcake!"_

Pantheon laughed heavily. Lux replied, "That sounds pretty scary!"

Lulu waved her wand in the air. "YOU BETCHA IT IS!"

Ahri knew that his probably wasn't the place for her. She saw another table that had Yasuo, Soraka, and Vi talking about the good ol' days of sparring tournaments.

"If I were still competing, I wouldn't hesitate in putting a couple of dents in that head of yours, Yasuo!"

Soraka thought to herself out loud. "That really makes me wonder how my healing magic can repair that so easily…Wait, how do I not know this?"

Yasuo crossed his arms and closed his eyes. "I'd take on clowns like you any day, Fat Hands!"

Vi slammed her fist down on the table. "OKAY, WHO TOLD YOU THAT NAME?!"

Ahri also felt that this wasn't something she really wanted to indulge herself in. Even though Ahri was able to manipulate people very easily, it came with the price of actual conversation. Ahri's lustful thoughts got in the way of meaningful conversations and relations that she had very little experience with. Knowing this, she decided that she would just go back to her cabin. On the way out, Jayce came over to Ahri.

"Hey…Uh, are you free?"

Ahri smiled. "I guess so."

"You want to go take a walk over to…uh, that lake maybe?"

Ahri could still feel the nervousness pouring out of Jayce as he attempted to talk to her. She accepted, and playfully held his hand all the way there. Jayce was becoming another one of the outliers of the groups since he was usually on his own to begin with. He didn't fit in with a lot of the other champions, so in that category he fit pretty well with Ahri.

"It does feel weird to be here, but I'm glad you asked me to come with you Jayce. You see, I've really been trying to detract on some of my usual behaviors."

Jayce laughed. "Like what?"

"You know…constantly thinking about how I could seduce someone, or stealing the hearts of men who crave for dirty wishes. Being half fox and half woman doesn't have all that many perks, to be honest." Ahri played with her tails a bit while thinking about how it would be if she could become human. "I went to Ionia for a while to study under the likes of Soraka in hopes that I could reverse the magic that I was put under."

"How long have you been like this?"

Ahri thought to herself. "Well, as long as I can remember. I might've been born this way for all I know, but I feel like I was once just a fox. I could've had a horrible past and been turned into a demon fox as a punishment of some sorts perhaps. But, I always thought it wouldn't be too long before I got out of it. Instead, I decided that I liked this body too much. I created a new persona of myself as a sexy and deceptive fox-girl. After the first time I felt _that_ , oh…I couldn't resist."

" _That_ , eh?"

Ahri laughed. "You know what I mean!"

"I'm surprised you haven't tried anything on me yet, haha!"

"That's something I wanted to ask you." Ahri looked him dead in the eyes. "Why do you trust me?"

Jayce didn't feel too pressured since they were alone for the first time. He swiftly replied, "I think that you are human, in all honesty. Even though you have those ears and those tails, you show the same emotions of any human in this entire group to things like the killing. You do have some good traits, even though some get overshadowed by others."

Ahri felt overly delighted to hear that, because she started to lose confidence in herself as being able to act like any other human. Ahri jumped over to Jayce and hugged him. "Thank you, Jayce. I still feel a bit scared being around this place, so please protect me."

Jayce was still unsure how to feel around women, but for some reason he didn't feel as nervous around Ahri when it was just the two of them. He patted her cat-like ears and reassured her the games would be over soon. "It is only a matter of time until my intelligence overcomes that fiend!"

Both of them laughed, and then Jayce walked Ahri all the way back to her cabin. On the way back to his house, he noticed Yasuo inspecting the houses nearby. Jayce questioned what he was doing.

Yasuo gave him a confused look. "I'm actually trying to advance our situation by finding a way out, meanwhile you are out on a date with a demon fox."

Jayce took offense to that comment. "She's not a demon! You haven't even interacted with her the entire time this whole fiasco started. Additionally, since we are all stuck here together we should learn to live together like a family."

Yasuo seriously contemplated that phrase in his head. ' _Family, eh? I wonder how much they contemplate at night how close they are to each other, when in reality they all hate each other. I never felt the warmth of family, and if this is what it means…I don't want it.'_

Yasuo left with one last comment. "We are nothing but champions, and no one could ever have the same bond of blood that I held with my brother."

Jayce felt a bit angry from that, but he knew Yasuo was still trying to recover from what he recently witnessed. It was hard for everyone who was still on the Rift to continually see their comrades perish, but there had to be some show of confidence going forward if they were all going to beat Jhin. Unfortunately, the mastermind himself had different plans. He forced everyone to meet in the middle of the map within a ten-minute time window. Jayce decided to go ahead and meet up with Ahri and the rest of the group.

When the three groups of champions got there, they saw Jhin on a virtual stage in front of them all. He bowed and gave a formal entrance. "Your mastermind of the Rift has graced you all with a simple request: kill. I have assured you that no one will die on the outside if you just keep the performance moving. You should be nice to the audience and not delay this game any longer!"

All of them gave Jhin more frustrated looks, just as they did when Jhin tried to provoke them earlier in the day. Sona was the first to speak up for once. "You may think this is a game, but it is not!"

Jhin laughed. "I assure you this is more than a game, but I feel that giving it the vibe of a game can get you champions into a comfort zone where all you think about is killing like you do on the Summoner's Rift. When we were all children at one point, we loved the beauty of everything and only questioned things when people scolded us. I want to be the good parent that nurtures a beauty inside of all of you, and then strengthen it until one day it fully blooms."

All of them threw down their respective weapons. Lux held her hand high. "We won't succumb to fear!"

Lulu got on top of her head. "We are strong and independent!"

Ahri chimed in. "We refuse to let more people die!"

Sona was the last. "Nothing you do will make us think otherwise from now on!"

Jhin looked angry when the champions all got there, even though he still felt he had it under control. "I really am annoyed with uncooperative performers. I have put everything perfectly in place so that you may see this art in its perfection, so why do you refuse to reciprocate?"

None of them replied.

Jhin turned around, and crossed his arms. "Very well, you have left me with no option. If you forget to water your flowers every so often, they won't age any faster. Let's speed up the process, shall we?" Jhin came back over and held out his hand, and then he held it strong. Before the rest of the champions knew it, they heard Sona choking on the ground.

"My…my lungs…ah…"

Vi rushed to her side. "No, no! Let her go!"

"Shush, my dear. Are you going to interrupt my puppet's beautiful song?"

And just like that, a melodious rhythm came from Sona's choking voice. It seeped out of her just as if it was being pulled out visibly. Even though it sounded so peaceful, the champions couldn't help but feel chills down their spines. It was hopeless…and before they knew it, the song had ended and Sona laid on the ground dead.

"You COWARD!" Vi slammed her fist on the ground right beside Jhin's hologram. "Enter the Rift so I can crush you to pieces, you god damned coward Jhin!"

Jhin teleported behind her. "It seems like you need a lesson as well, darling." Jhin grabbed both of Vi's gauntlets and held them behind her back. "You really are attached to these things, aren't you? They're such dull instruments of brutality, but I know how to put them to good use…" Jhin started pulling them back while Vi was stuck on the ground right in front of her. She felt the tug of her gauntlets behind her, which made her arms feel weak and overstretched.

Yasuo swung out his sword from behind him and yelled at his fellow champions. "WHAT ARE YOU IDIOTS DOING? PROTECT HER!"

The leader of the pack who was proclaimed for her hope in everybody stood there in shock, and whispered, "It's…useless…"

In just a few more seconds after that was said, they heard a loud shriek of pain come from Vi. Her gauntlets started cracking under the pressure of Jhin, and her arms broke right behind her. Jhin took one of the gray shards from Vi's gauntlets, and held it high in the sun. "When people ask me why I care so much for my art, I laugh and make them figure out. When people question the beauty of my art…" He struck Vi right through the stomach with the shard, and she fell over on the ground. " _I CAN'T HELP BUT QUENCH MY ANGER IN A SOOTHING EXECUTION!"_

Jhin let go of Vi's gauntlets and let them lay right beside her corpse. The group of champions there had déjà vu from the first day that they were selected to be a part of this killing game when Garen became a demonstration in front of them all. Then they had to sit and watch as Jhin took the lives of more people, without being able to do anything at all.

"Now then…I hope that this sudden performance will remind you all of what will happen if you reject my art. If I do not see new material by sundown…well, I'll let you decide what you think will happen. I do crave to see the shock of frustration and fear swallow you champions whole, until you give in to this beauty. Just remember dear puppets: It not the gun, nor the sword, or the mallet that kills - _it is The Performance that Kills._ "

Jhin disappeared before any of the champions could even call out Jhin for his devious crimes. All of them knew that night was coming in at least two hours. Lux decided to make a last ditch effort call. "Everyone, please lock your doors tonight. Do not let anyone enter. Jhin thrives on making all of us witness his personal executions, so all we have to do is wait it out and no one will die. Please, I promise you all that we can still get out of here alive!"

Some stared at other champions for short periods of time before vanishing off in the darkness. Jayce felt concerned for Ahri, who recently said she was still in shock, and he managed to catch up with her before the night ended.

"Ahri, will you be okay?"

Ahri was visibly crying, but she tried to remain calm. "I...think i'll be fine. This is just getting so hard for me to endure."

Jayce reminded Ahri, "Don't forget that I will protect you. I promise that you and I will make it out of this game alive, even if I have to kill Jhin with my own hands."

Ahri sniffed, and somehow struck a smile. "O-Okay, you're right. I'll have to keep relying on you, then! For now, let's both get some rest." Ahri went off fast before Jayce could say anything else.

Ahri contemplated to herself what she would do, since she didn't feel tired. ' _I can't believe that Jhin took two more people from us...There's no telling from this point on how many other people he could take...What if I am next?'_

 _On_ Her On her way back to her house, she saw a light in an old cabin that was supposedly abandoned before. ' _Hmm? What is that?'_

~ That's right, my darling. I know that the inner passion of yours will keep this game interesting. I can't wait to see the upcoming performance tonight, because I know that it will be the most beautiful of them all! ~


	6. Act V - Compelling Passions

(Fair warning - this chapter has explicit sexual details)

Morning came earlier than was thought, and people slowly rose up to the occasion.

Lux decided to check up on some of the other groups, since Vi and Graves were no longer in her group. She saw Yasuo just sitting right outside of his house with his eyes closed.

"What's up, Yasuo?"

"Oh, nothing…yet…I sure hope."

"Hmm?" Lux couldn't understand what he was trying to imply. "Where's the rest of your group?"

"Well, Orianna is missing and Soraka refuses to come out of her house, and Sona…" Yasuo growled slightly to himself. "We already know what happened there. So I've been waiting to meet up with your group and Jayce's group."

Pantheon walked towards Lux and Yasuo with haste. "I'm glad to see you two are still okay. I haven't heard anything from Ahri or Jayce so I have no idea what to do."

"To be honest, I haven't heard anything from Lulu or Lucian either…Are people just not waking up?"

Pantheon disagreed. "Unlikely. People are just very doubtful of each other right now. Maybe some of them are just scared of Jhin, but a fool such as him can't break me!"

Lux smiled slightly. "That's a relief, but why don't we check up on those we haven't seen yet?"

Pantheon nodded. "Understood."

Pantheon, Lux and Yasuo were set out to see what Yasuo and Ahri were up to. Ahri wasn't at her cabin, however. They knocked so many times until they just looked into the window and noticed that no one was there. It was hard to see because the curtain was blocking the view of most of her room, but no one was at the bed. After a while, Ahri snuck up on them and jumped on Lux while saying, "RAWR!"

Lux jumped up while Ahri was on her back playfully scratching at her back. Everyone was happy to see Ahri was still alive, but also thought Lux's reaction was priceless.

"Ahahaha, oh my sides! That scene was too good."

Lux whimpered and sighed a bit. "Ahri, you know that I get spooked easily.

Ahri agreed. "That's why I did it, silly. We could all use a bit of brightening up."

Yasuo stared at Ahri a little bit, with a bit of question marks in his head after noticing Ahri's door. Ahri immediately got up in Yasuo's face. "Whatcha looking at, you pervert?"

Yasuo looked away. "N-Nothing."

Ahri laughed playfully. "Oh, I see. You could've just told me if you wanted to look at me so intensely!"

Yasuo shrugged it off, and the rest of them went off to Jayce's cabin. They immediately noticed that the door was shot open, with the top hinge almost broken.

"Oh shit, you don't think someone got in, do you?"

Pantheon tried to think about something he noticed last night. "That doesn't make sense to me…when I tried to unlock my door from the outside while it was locked, it was really hard to bust open. This must've been something that happened while it was already unlocked."

Yasuo sighed. "That idiot! We told him to keep the damn door locked!"

Lux decided to walk into the room. "Let's not worry about that. Something's not right here." Lux thought that the place looked suspiciously nice even for the fact that the door was busted right open. Nothing was easily seen from just the inside with the door open, so there had to be another clue around that was not easy to see.

Lux picked up a book that was right beside Jayce's bed, and her hunch that it was a diary was correct.

"It looks like every cabin really does have a personal diary. I wonder if we can read the diaries of those who already passed?"

Ahri rushed over to the book. "Now's not the time for that! This could hint us in to something major that happened last night!"

Ahri shuffled through pages and read the last one out loud.

 _'The day felt really gloomy up until that moment where I asked Ahri out for a walk to the lake. This might've been the first time I felt so close to another women without feeling all this pressure inside of me. It doesn't make much sense to me, but I'm sure it will all start to unfold very soon._

 _Log 2_

 _Seeing more fellow comrades die today felt awful. I wasn't in great relation with Sona and Vi specifically, but I talked to them quite a bit before the Summoner's Rift started up. I know of a lot of people who are still alive here that really take this personally…I hope that I can help them!_

 _Log 3_

 _I'm hearing screams out there…sounds like distant cries for help. I don't want to leave, but what if someone's being attacked? Shit, I have to go with my gut!_

Yasuo sighed again. "I knew it. Looks like that poor bastard got caught up in someone else's game." He started walking over to the other side of Jayce's bed, and then Ahri shouted something nebulous.

"OH MY GOSH, JAYCE WROTE ME A LOVE LETTER!" Ahri frantically read and read until she fell over on the other side.

Lux came to her side. "Are you okay? Did that note really make you that dizzy?"

Ahri put her hand on the back of her head and just laughed it off. "I guess it's just weird to see something like that, I never really had that close of a connection to someone."

Yasuo interrupted them. "What the fuck…" He dragged something heavy from under the bed, and it was covered in a rather large black blanket. Yasuo cut through it with his blade, and put both his hands over his mouth when he revealed what it was.

Ahri walked over playfully with Jayce's diary still in her hands. "What's the matter over there?" When Ahri saw what was just dug out under the bed, she dropped the diary instantly and stuttered heavily. "N-No…Th-that's…" Ahri fell down right in front of Jayce's bed with great force. " **JAAAYYYYYYCCCEEEEEEE!** "

Lux crawled over fast to see a pale and shaken look on what appeared to be the dead body of Jayce. She also felt a bit shook. "He died under his own bed? How could this have happened?"

Ahri wiped tears from both of her eyes, as she started to think about the rest of the people left. "Who is there left…that could possibly be driven to such extremes? Jayce was the only one who said he trusted me, and now I'm all alone again…"

Lux attempted to comfort her. "You aren't alone! Please just hold on, Ahri!" Lux immediately sent Pantheon to contact the rest of the people who were not already there. They all came surprisingly fast to all come and witness the newest killing of the pack.

Yasuo felt disturbed slightly. "I wish that sometimes the killer would just come clean. You all agree that Jhin is a coward, yet you succumb to his dirty little tricks then try to hide in the shadows while you give the rest of us grief."

Ahri was still in deep pain, and she was by the side of Lux the entire time. "I guess that means…we just have to start figuring out who did it."

Lux agreed. "Right. What do you think of this one, Soraka?"

Her face was blank. "This is unlike any death I have seen so far. I remember when I was a child and my parents read me horror stories of monsters scaring the souls out of humans, but even this is something that seems so unreal. He is completely pale, his bones are weak, but he was alive for quite a while before he died. I can tell by the way that his body is responding to my starcall. It wasn't just someone coming in a killing Jayce; it seems like the killer literally tormented him until he was nothing more."

Ahri let out a frustrated cry. "Who could do such a thing, to such an innocent person nonetheless?"

Everyone immediately looked at Lucian, who always gave Ahri the hardest of times. Lucian closed his eyes, and crossed his arms. "I don't have time for this accusation. I hunt demons and protect the innocent, not the other way around."

Pantheon replied to him. "You knew this would cause great torment for Ahri, who you always call a demon fox. This doesn't seem like it is in your alley, but you could've been driven into despair just like the other killers!"

Yasuo disagreed. "I don't know, Lucian always seemed to just have that personality around anybody. We can't question how he would act around anyone specifically because that's just how he has been for so long. He obviously has some issues in the past that he wants to sort out, so Lucian probably wouldn't care in partaking in a game like this."

Lucian smirked. "At least one of you can get it."

Lux sighed. "But who do we think it could be."

They all started to look around at the rest of the champions who were alive. Lux, Ahri, Lulu, Lucian, Soraka, Yasuo, and Pantheon. With the recent loss of Orianna, they thought about what her part in the case could've been.

Lux tried to deny any thoughts of Orianna being the killer. "You all don't know Orianna very well. She seems like almost a pure AI who doesn't know of her own existence outside of this place. She has some emotions to her, but she doesn't respond to lots of people very well. She might have even tried to leave because of how we treated her. It would've also been difficult for her to go out unnoticed since she is pretty loud."

Yasuo agreed with that, and tried to further this accusation. "Why don't we all just trace our steps from yesterday? I want to hear what we were all doing last night. Since I started, I'll tell you all what I was doing until I went back to my cabin." Yasuo explained that he kept inspecting more cabins that were seemingly abandoned, or maybe were going to be in use for champions but they died before they could use them. One of them specifically had lots of weird items in them. A bunch of books in there had been completely blank, and they were filled with so much dust even though they had probably just been stored there. On top of the book shelves were things that look like miniature versions of champions who had recently been executed by Jhin. There was a Graves puppet, a Sona puppet, a Vi puppet…and one other…"

Ahri questioned him. "What was it?"

Yasuo immediately dodged the question. "How about I continue my story later? I want to hear what you were doing last night?"

Ahri was thinking to herself everything that she did after Lux told everyone to go back to sleep. "I believe that I took a shortcut route back to my cabin since it's just right outside the lake. Something startled me and I screamed pretty loudly and ran back as fast as I could. I tried to see if anyone could hear me, but I knew it was just best to go back to my cabin. After that, I went to sleep and woke up pretty early to see Jayce but he wasn't there that morning."

Yasuo shrugged, and tried to dig into Ahri's story. "So you just went straight to sleep in your own place, right?"

Ahri smiled "Yep!"

Yasuo held up a key. "Tell me how you did that when you were locked out?"

Ahri looked over to see Yasuo holding up her key. She checked her backside pocket, and then she got really confused. "I had that key on me all day! Wait, when you were staring at me earlier today I felt something…DID YOU TOUCH MY BUTT!?"

Yasuo didn't temper down. "Quit playing dumb. You dropped this in a place that you visited last night, so please tell me what you saw."

Ahri thought hard. "Welllll...I guess there was this one place that I walked by on the way back. It was old and creepy looking, but I thought it was just an illusion from me being worn out so I just kept on walking."

Yasuo kept pushing her. "What made you scream?"

Ahri felt a little scared thinking about it. "It was something really big, and it looked like a bear. I don't think there are animals here so…"

"Enough bullshit. Why did you try to kill me?"

Ahri went silent, and the rest of the champions felt really confused.

Lux tried to figure out the situation. "Wait hold on, Ahri tried to kill you?"

"No doubt in my mind." Yasuo retold his experience. "When I was roaming late at night, I noticed someone walk into one of the houses that I just talked about. They dropped their key in that cabin so I went inside to retrieve it and that's when I noticed THIS!" In his hands, he held a puppet that looked exactly like Ahri. "Thinking it was a mind trick, I set out and tried to see if I could get that person their key. I heard something in the wind that made a small smacking sound, and I realized someone was trying to kill me. I didn't understand why, until I recounted later in the day the other puppets that were in there. The ones that were recently executed were on the left, and Ahri's puppet was to the very right of it. It made sense that she would try to kill me, because I was the only one there who also knew about it."

Ahri gave a blank face to what he said. "That's like…a pretty weird conclusion you got from that." Ahri giggled a little, and revealed a dark look on her face. "I guess I could just end the games here and told you how I killed Jayce."

Yasuo was surprised by Ahri's statement. "WHAT? YOU ADMIT?!"

Ahri agreed. "Yep! This key is Jayce's. I really tricked you all, didn't I? Yasuo said killers should just come clean, so I don't mind confessing about this one in particular."

Lux was filled with grief and confusion. "How did you go through with it?"

Ahri turned her dark look into a more serious tone. "Are you kidding me? You really think after what I saw that I could just sit back and be executed?! No, I had to do something I planned to do so long ago…" Ahri started thinking about the things that led up to her decision to kill Jayce. "You have no idea how much I still love Jayce, and how much I wanted him. I let it get to my head, and the lustful thoughts came back to my head. I refused to let them get to me before, but I just _couldn't stand waiting any longer!"_

"W-What are you talking about?"

Ahri smiled, and explained with a perverted look on her face. "Oh, you don't get it, do you? I steal life essence from the desires of men, you know; I just decided to give Jayce a little taste of heaven, hehe!" Even thinking about it made Ahri drool. "I thought about making Yasuo the suspect, but re-telling this story was just tooooo gooood!"

Ahri started the story back to when she was going home.

(This part of the story will be told from the first person account of Ahri)

The time that I started walking home, I noticed that there was something glowing inside a cabin nearby that should've been abandoned. I heard it whisper to me, "You may resist beauty, but it is futile. In your mind you know you love this passion that drives you, but instead you wish to end up…like these…." I saw the puppets of Sona and Vi, who resembled in my head those that struggled in kindness for nothing, and not to mention had recently been executed. A puppet that resembled me was hanging right next to both of them. I thought to myself how their struggle meant absolutely fucking nothing for our cause, and how I would just be next. I knew that Yasuo was somewhere near me, and I could've easily killed him, but what's the fun in that?

It was true, if I really did die that night then Jayce would be really sad. I couldn't let that happen, so I decided that I would spend the last day of my life giving Jayce a day to remember. I screamed somewhere outside his house to try and get his attention, and I knocked at his door frantically hoping that he would open for me. Of course, him being the idiotic gentleman that he is, Jayce busted open his door at the sight of me asking for help.

"What's wrong, Ahri?" He told me.

I told him, "I'm scared, I think someone is chasing me. Please let me hide here for tonight!"

He gave me his old usual confident smirk, saying, "Don't worry, I won't let anyone hurt you. You're safe here."

I started laughing uncontrollably, because he had no clue what he just got himself into. "Hey Jayce, can you remind me again why you trust me?"

He paused for a moment in confusion, and gave a short answer. "I trust you because you are strong and just wish for acceptance."

"Oh, is that so?" I turned around to him, and pushed him against his own wall with my body pressed up against him. "You really trust me with all your heart and soul?"

I was filled with ecstasy seeing Jayce's uncomfortable and nervous look. He told me once again, "I really do trust you!"

I put my hand over the back of his head, and leaned in on his shoulder while I told him, "Then trust me with your body, my sweet Jayce."

"W-What?!" The shock that overcame him was delightful; he didn't even resist me when I threw him onto his bed and leaped onto him. His trust in me meant total control for me, which is why he was the perfect victim.

"This game has really heightened my nerves, Jayce. Please just let me release _all of my stress_." My cat-like nails pierced his clothes, while I threw mine to the side of his bed. The look on his face when both of us revealed our naked bodies to each other…holy shit I never felt SO ALIVE! I leaned in closer to his face, and kissed his cheek. "Let me ask you one more time, Jayce: Will you trust me with your body, or will you try to resist me?"

He didn't even answer me; he just gave me his regular cute little blank stare. "Heheheh, I guess I'm just going to have to release the beast within you…" I kissed him, and grabbed a hold of his inner soul with my charm. I could feel something inside of him wake up, like a personality that he refused to show to anyone but me. You see, I can tell when people are hiding something from me that I want. All of this time here, I knew Jayce had a beastly side of him that would just _drive me over the edge of pleasure!_

I could hear him whisper when he woke up from my lustful intoxication. "Do you really want me this badly?"

I whispered back, "Yes, take control."

The moments after are indescribable…he got up and threw me against his own bed and just started fucking me like it was second-hand nature to him. I could feel all of his passions and dreams being let loose that night. While I usually just kill people after taking all their essence, Jayce just refused to let up…AND I JUST WANTED MORE AND MORE AND MORE!

"J-JAYCE, YO-YOU'RE GOING TO H-HURT YOURSELF! AAGHHHH!"

He told me in such a convincing voice, "I don't want to stop!" It was as if he knew I was swallowing him whole, but the pleasure was too overwhelming for him to back out now. We didn't just stop at the bed; I can remember us breaking the door wide open from going too hard there and then somehow ending up on the floor. He was on top of me, as he was ready to unleash all of him inside of me. Jayce knew that he was about to die, but he looked into my eyes and told me, "Take all of me…please…" He kissed me one last time, as all the color disappeared from his face. I saw him fall over to my side, and while part of me wanted to cry, I just couldn't get rid of the pleasure that he had given me. He even came all over my tails before he could finish inside of me.

I licked every last bit, and thought to myself, "Just as I thought, you tasted delicious to every last drop… _hnnnnggggg!_ "

Ahri just stood there before everyone with her hands around her chest while fantasizing about everything she did last night, while the other champions around her looked at her in complete disarray.

Lucian held one hand on his right pistol. "I knew you were nothing but a demon fox. I should have terminated you from the beginning!"

Ahri rushed over to Lucian, and grabbed his hand next. "You say that, but I can see all your desires inside your soul. I know you're not just a lonely warrior with no lusts yourself; I can tell you want to do some naughty things with Senna, don't you?"

Lucian threw her back. "W-WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU HEAR THAT NAME?!"

Jhin appeared right behind Ahri, and slowly clapped. " _Magnificent, my darling._ I can see that you have truly accepted beauty inside your heart, even if it cast aside something else dwelling deep inside of you. It's not the type of art that I engage in, but your performance was still a perfect display of beautiful killing. What's more, _everyone on the outside was able to witness the entire thing unfold!_ "

Ahri blushed with her tails in front of her face. "I'm not too used to having other people watch me seduce men, but I bet it was really hot to see. I wish I could just watch it over and over again…"

Jhin rested both his arms on Ahri. "Well, that is in the past. Now them, shall we dance?"

Ahri smiled at Jhin, which seriously creeped out all the other champions. This was the very first occurrence of someone willfully killing someone, being okay with it, and then embracing Jhin in their final moments. Jhin twirled around Ahri, and held her high in the air. "Behold, people of Ionia: Your idol has shown you art in its truest form. Do not let authority silence your inner beast, because it is only a natural act."

Ahri laughed, and thought to herself, ' _I wonder if he's talking about the fucking part, or the killing part. Either fills me with absolute pleasure.'_

Jhin put her back on the ground, and they started slow dancing. "I wish I could keep you alive, my darling. Your beauty in killing transcends your beautiful looks by far. However, I'm sure both of us know…" Jhin pulled out a knife from his backpocket, and swung it in Ahri's back to symbolize her traitorous deeds. "…Every beautiful performance has its conclusion."

Ahri didn't even resist when she was being stabbed, she fell over in Jhin's arms and went out quiet. Jhin dragged her over to a small plot of grass, and laid her down. "Rest in peace, Ahri. Your influence will be widespread; I am utterly sure of this."

Most of the champions who just witnessed Ahri's execution didn't care because they saw Ahri as a traitor whereas the others who were executed seemed innocent to an extent. Yet, Soraka was behind everyone on the ground crying. "I wish you all could understand that the Ahri you just saw get executed is not the Ahri that has been around you for so long."

Lucian scoffed. "Unlikely, demons like her are very deceptive and take multiple forms…"

Soraka threw her staff at Lucian. "Oh, just shut the fuck up. Ahri didn't choose her form; she used every bit of her power in Ionia to try to get rid of it. The only reason that she seduced men was to get enough essence to turn into a human, but a lustful part of her inside of Ahri's soul made her keep seducing men instead of seeking help. I was sure that she would change once she was under my leadership. I couldn't save her in Ionia or in this god damned killing game…"

Lux was the only one who came to Soraka's side. "I'm sorry for your loss, Soraka. It's hard for any of us to feel the same sympathy for her death because we don't know her very well. If what you say is true, then I do feel sad that she is gone as well."

Jhin bowed once more to the crowd of champions and the people on the outside, then disappeared.

~ After this Act, I am sure that my plan will be completed very shortly. There are only seven champions left, and they still have to deal with my little experiment right before their eyes. Oh, how will you respond my beautiful puppets? _Please continue to impress me!_ ~


	7. Act VI - Sweet Sorrows, Forevermore

Hope slowly dissipated in its every waking moment that the champions were trapped on the Rift. Seeing so many of the people that they had grown to care about and love had been forcefully taken away from them, both from the mastermind Jhin and from their own comrades who some had fought alongside for decades. No one ever thought that something like this could ever occur, but sometimes it is necessary to test those who talk a big game but surrender when it starts to become rough.

After Ahri and Jayce had died, the plan to escape from the hidden caves that Vi had found would now be impossible because there are now only six champions left (Lucian, Lux, Soraka, Pantheon, Lulu, Yasuo). The disappearance of Orianna didn't mean much to anyone except for Lux who talked to her the most out of any other champion who had entered the killing game. It made them think that Lux could possibly be a conspirator, but even this was a hard thought to take in. As usual, the champions all went back to their respective houses to get a long rest so that they may hopefully forget all the recent tragedies that occurred.

When Lux entered her home, she thought about everything that she wanted to write down in her personal diary. She even thought about what others were writing about.

"I wonder…" She went outside her house, and traveled to Ahri's house. One of Jhin's infamous rules that he added after the first killing had occurred was that anyone who died would lose access to their personal in game digital key, and that meant that anyone could visit their unlocked house at any time. Lux opened the door, and saw Ahri's diary on her bed. It was laying down, but it was opened slightly.

Lux slowly but cautiously opened it. "What were you thinking, Ahri?"

' _On the outside, I am never lonely. The only reason for this is that there are so many people who chase after me, whether it be those who act like they want to help me, or those who have already fallen numb to my beauty. Whenever I enter the rift, it feels like I am a different person. I do not have the same compassion for people, and I usually kill anyone who threatens me. In this game, the feeling of loneliness hit harder than seeing any of those champions die…_

 _It feels like there is nothing left for me. If I die tonight, who will remember me? I never did anything to earn the respect of anyone. I always get seen as a demon fox who wants nothing more than to just seduce every man in my sight. It is true, I do crave for the taste of a man…but that kind of pleasure isn't what I want…I wanted something that transcends that…I wanted a friend…I wanted a home…I want to be something special for someone. Everyone doubts that I want to change, even though I spend fifteen years in Ionia studying under multiple teachers in the hope that I could control my desires and become a human. Nobody realizes that I wanted peace all this time, but they do not know what goes on in my head. Every time I see someone, woman or man alike, I get this feeling in my body that makes me want to wrap myself around them and drain their life essence in the pleasure of my grasp. I have to consciously tell my demonic side of myself that I do not want it._

 _If there's anything that this game has taught me…well, I guess it is that life is unfair. I will not wait any longer for something to be graced upon me…From now on, I am the one who will decide my future.'_

Lux's tried to hold in her tears, but it was too hard. "We were all responsible for Ahri's death. It wasn't just Jhin, it was the people around her who made her really feel like trash." Lux placed the book by Ahri's table and then went back to her house to sleep. She refused to update her diary, because she didn't want to stay awake to think about all the things she could've done that would've saved Ahri. It was hard enough knowing that someone was on the outside probably waiting for Ahri, but now she had the guilt of knowing that she was partially responsible in her killing.

Lux rarely had dreams, but tonight she dreamed of a past memory from a very long time ago…

 _'Heyyyy, wait up Lux!' Lux's friends were following right behind her after class ended. They all decided that they were going to go out and eat ice cream. Lux waved at them from behind with a long smile on her face. When they all met up, they walked together down the long path alongside the old Institute of War. There, Lux saw someone sitting by herself reading a book._

 _Lux looked around her. 'She looks lonely…'_

 _Lux's friends kept her moving. 'Who cares?! She's none of our concern!'_

 _Her other friends motivated her as well. 'Yeah, let's go!'_

 _Lux refused to move. She stepped back and held out her hand to the little girl who was still sitting down._

 _'Hey there! You look like you're all by your lonesome. You should come with us!'_

 _The girl moved her face from her book, and looked up with a confused look. 'Uhh…w-what? Me?'_

 _Lux smiled. 'Yeah, silly! I'm Luxanna, what's your name?' She extended her hand_

 _The little girl also smiled at her. 'Oh! My name…right! My name is-'_

 _Lux was pulled away by her friends before the little girl could speak. Suddenly, Lux had gained clear vision of who that girl was. A single tear came down her left eye as Lux was being taken away._

 _'…Ahri…'_

Lux woke up from her unpleasant memory of her past, and went to meet up with the other remaining champions. It seemed to Lux that so many were lost in such a short time in this killing game; it made her wonder if she really could have saved them all from certain death. She decided to stop thinking about it.

Lux sat down next to Yasuo and Lucian. "Well, what are we going to do now?"

No one responded for a split second. Lulu was content poking at Pantheon with her wand and Soraka was still in low spirits after yesterday. Lucian decided to break the silence. "If you claim to be strong and sorrowful of your fallen teammates, then we will keep fighting. This is painful for all of us, but if you give up now then you have already lost."

Lux, even though still not in the brightest of moods, agreed. "Okay, then I think we should all go our separate ways now to look for new clues. We might even try to contact Orianna if we have the chance!"

Lucian walked away as he heard this. "I'm glad that I get to work alone once more. Hopefully not for much longer on this side…"

~ Have we already gotten to this moment in the game? The fun was just beginning only moments ago, and yet there are still so many things I want to do. Perhaps my little angel will keep them company, hahahaha. ~

Lux discovered what seemed to be like a two-story building that the champions had never entered because the broken door on the front made it hard to enter. At this point, the broken door had collapsed in two in front of the building and left the place wide open. Even though it looked old and murky, Lux thought it would make for good exploration at the very least. She went inside the kitchen and noticed that the water was still running. When Lux tried to turn it right, it still kept going.

"That's odd…"

She turned it left, and the faucet refused to stop. Inside the sink, Lux found a bat with a large dent in the middle and a kitchen knife. It creeped out Lux to think that at one point these could have been used in the game if this building was available previously, but she thought nothing of it. There was no food in the kitchen or any light switches anywhere, so she decided to leave it and go upstairs. It was then that she found a stack of books just sitting on an open shelf. One of the books was opened, but it was covered in dust. Lux blew off the dust and tried to start reading what was on the page that was left open.

' _It was like nothing ever before. Even a wife of my own could not grant me the beauty that you will give me, my dear daughter._

 _It took me so long to weld you into the creation that I asked for as a little boy. All the paintings, drawings, sketches, models and ideas of you do not even come close to comparing the real you. I just hope that the Institute of War will accept you for who you are, because in reality you are no different than the rest of those champions. Indeed, a beating heart is not what makes a person – no, no…it is the ability to create a beautiful performance that matters the most. Who knows, you might even become useful outside of that game._

 _All will tell in good time. Good night, my dearest…'_

Lux fell over on her back.

"Th-This can't be what I think it is…How is that possible?!"

 _'my dearest…invention…Orianna…'_

Lux desperately looked for an author on the book, but every single book on that shelf had no title and no author. She tried to read through the other books now.

' _Even though she is still a prototype of the masterpiece I wish to create, she is truly a work of art. I think people will not appreciate my invention if they do not see her in action, so I must make sure she enters stage in the brightest of colors.'_

She opened another.

' _Each performance makes me feel something inside of me growing, as if I was a child once more in adult's clothing. This passion is so compelling…I refuse to let it stop here. I will make it go beyond this game. If people only see my art as a mere mockery, they will never see this true beauty.'_

"No…NO…NOOOO!"

Lux opened one last book.

' _It does feel bittersweet having to say goodbye to you, my darling. I hope that I can see you grow even more than I ever good in that League. I want to see you flourish oh so sweetly, and oh so deadly. When the time is right, I will grant you back your memories and you will put on the best performance of them all – THE CLOSING SEQUENCE!'_

Lux truly hoped that this was all a setup by Jhin, but it seemed nearly undeniable. If Jhin had put all these books in this room that could be accessed by champions at some point in the game, then he wanted them to know for some reason that Orianna was really his invention. She fleed the house and tried to find the rest of the champions.

"EVERYONE…PLEASE, I HAVE IMPORTANT NEWS!"

No one was around her. She was all alone now in a big field surrounded by nothing but forests. Jhin's voice was heard by Lux.

"I think that the time is just right to create the performance of a lifetime. Please, enter center stage my dear. Go ahead…and _make everyone beautiful_."

Before Lux could react, she saw Orianna walking outside of the forest with her robotic ball by her side. She looked very similar, but she was acting weird. When Lux saw her, she tried to talk to her.

"Orianna, there's something really important I have to tell you. I can help you get back your memories!"

Orianna didn't listen. She kept walking in Lux's direction.

"Hey, w-what are you doing?!"

Orianna continued walking, as if she heard nothing. This time, she spoke to Lux. "You…"

Lux backed up slowly. "What's gotten into you?"

Orianna continued talking. "I…hate…you…"

Lux couldn't understand what was going on. "What is this all of the sudden? Didn't we become friends in our short time here?"

Orianna closed her eyes, but still kept walking. "I know who I am now; you hid the secret from me, didn't you?"

"N-NO!"

Orianna started walking faster. "I have no feelings, I have no home, I have no…friends…No, all I have is master. He is the reason for my existence, and whatever he tells me to do I must obey."

Lux tried to deny what she said. "Even if some of that is true, it doesn't HAVE to be true, Orianna! I told you…you choose who you are, no one else can."

Orianna stopped. "Worthless." She pointed to Orianna, and commanded her ball to attack. "I am nothing but a performer."

Lux held her hands over her face, and heard a loud bang in the next second come right behind her. Lux opened her eyes, and saw Orianna blown to bits. Lucian had walked in Lux's sight, and extended his hand. "Are you okay?"

Lux couldn't help but cry. "I am…but…Orianna…"

Lucian helped Lux walk over to her. Orianna's clockwork was still in place, but she could not any part of her mechanical body. Lux kneeled down next to her. "You…didn't…die…Master will…hate me…"

Lux put her hand over Orianna's chest. "I didn't want it to be true, but you really are Jhin's invention. And to think that this of all things wouldn't be the first occasion where I couldn't save someone who I really wanted to call a friend."

Lucian put his hand on Lux's shoulder. "It's over, Lux. Don't worry, we will all escape this place. I have found the closing sequence that can end this game once and for all."

Though Lux was still crying, she hugged Lucian. "It's so hard, but…I just want to save the rest of the champions."

Lucian understood her distress and calmed her. "Jhin won't take any more of us; If anything goings wrong on the outside, I promise that I will take him down even if it means I fall down with him."

On the other side – everyone was shouting with joy hoping that the game would end soon.

"WE DID IT, CAPTAIN!"

Tetsuken threw the soldier off of him. "Yes, hopefully this blasted game will be over. But I don't think that will end what is about to happen…"

The soldier looked at him confused. "What do you mean, Captain Tetsuken?"

Tetsuken shrugged, and slowly pointed outside. The soldier looked out, and was terrified by the sight that he was witnessing. It wasn't the regular people who were watching the games outside now; it was the entire army of Ionia. Elder Bishou was in the front with a flag of Ionia. They were set to attack the Institute at any moment.

"I said I would not let anyone die, and I failed. I refuse to let any of my men die from this point on. If it means war, then I won't back down at crushing Ionia. This will be the battle that ends it all."

~ Farewell, my darling. You were one of my finest masterpieces, but yet you are still just a pawn in my overall plot. I do hope this solemn beauty that you could see on the side of the game will transfer to my new puppets on the outside. In the meantime, my art will slowly captivate everyone in my grasp… ~


	8. Act VII - The Irony of the Mask

~The monologue of Jhin's past~

*Fair Warning – this is a story of how Jhin became the mastermind of the Killing Games, so it includes gruesome details of killing in his past.*

There comes a time in everyone's life when they wake up and start to take control of their lives. It wasn't very obvious to me, because I was just a student who wanted nothing more than to grow up like those that I had admired in my days past. The people who I looked up to made me think that as long as I worked hard and listened to what I was told by everyone, I could truly make a difference in this world.

I was known in the small town that I grew up in from Piltover as the most intelligent artist at my age. I was only 17, but I created so many different works of art. I attended the most prestigious school for artists at this time, and my passion was in making romantic images. You see, I grew obsessed with the idea of 'love' and 'beauty' in the traditional way that it was taught. It was hard for me to conceive of it at first, because my teachers always told me that my parents loved me very much, but they also loved each other very much. However, what looked like love on the outside from the films and documentaries that I had watched wasn't even close to the interactions that my mother and my father had. It seemed like every time I saw them…my father was abusing my mother in various ways. He even told me I was a waste of air and was only a financial burden in his eyes.

I disregarded all of this, because I had deep respect for the people who were older than me that taught me the ways of life.

I want to share a couple of days in particular that I remember most vividly. Let me say, they truly…opened my eyes.

It was a regular Monday school day, and I came to class with great excitement. I sat in the front row, and eagerly waved my notebook out in the hopes that I could get my wonderful teacher to notice my new drawings. Like I said, I was in love with romantic-style drawings, but I wanted to add a new twist to it. My teacher soon noticed it, and even picked it up to view it in its fullness. He asked me harshly, "What is this?"

I replied, "This is my new piece; I'd like to call it the sour taste of love, because it is a girl who is in pain due to her loved one but she is still looking at him like a loved one even though her heart is being pierced."

The teacher threw my notebook on my desk. "I see where you are getting the concept, but nonetheless I hate it. It's shit."

"W-What? I thought you said to have an open mind when creating new images?"

My teacher shook his head twice. "I do not want to see images that portray killing. They are disgusting and only appeal to violent cultures of artists. Don't you know that a man hurting a woman is an awful thing?"

"I…I have heard this, but it isn't distant to me. When you told us to bring our real life images of the world into life, this is what I saw."

My teacher refused to answer me. He kept on teaching his lesson, and he refused to make eye contact with me for the rest of the day.

That line he told me stuck inside of me…'Don't you know that a man hurting a woman is an awful thing?' If this is such a bad act, why does my father do it? I decided to go home earlier because I wasn't feeling well after lunch, and I needed to take a small rest. I remember coming home to my mother, who openly hugged me and set a warm blanket for me on the couch while I recovered. My mother was a stay-at-home mom because she could not find work that fit her skillset, so my father had to work double the amount of shifts that men usually do in Piltover.

That day, my father came home earlier than expected. He looked drunk, because he could barely make it to the kitchen without falling over. He went straight to my mother, who he kissed but punched in the stomach at the same time. He told her, "Make me my fucking lunch you bitch."

My mother looked like she was crying, but she kept the same smile on her face that she had when I came home. I didn't make any sense to me. Everything that I was taught about how violence is wrong was being broken in my own home. The idea that a man should never hit a woman was never true in my home. Even when I attempted to confront my mother, she told me it was okay. "Things aren't always perfect, son. Your father just works very hard, so he must be tired."

But everything my mother told me begged the question, at what point was it enough? My intelligence leads me to believe that I was being deceived by the masses in Piltover and that violence wasn't wrong, but my mother herself told me, "Always be nice to girls around you. Make them feel like they are treated equally." This narrative is starting to collapse on itself. If this is true, then is my father really a bad person? Is my mother just lying to me to make me feel better? Is my teacher giving me false narratives about how men and women should act? What is it…I must find out.

I did so much reading that night. I decided to finish a love story that I had just started earlier the other day, and the ending made me feel so different. The woman of this man's dream had killed herself because she was told that her lover was dead. She couldn't bear to live in her world without the man of her dreams. The man was also told that her lover killed herself, and because of that he decided that he would also kill himself. Once more, I have read another light story that told me what it means to be in 'love.' Love is something so powerful that it transcends human thought, or so I have been told. Is love so powerful that it controls the way we act? Or, is it that we do not know what true love is? I wondered this more and more and more, until I finally decided that this understanding of love could not be truly what was going on between my father and my mother.

I heard yelling once more coming from the kitchen. I heard my father beat my mother, and I knew that this wasn't what any of these books called 'love.' I knew that something had to be done, because I was told that I should protect women and those who love me. I had taken a baseball bat from the attic, and I came all the way down the stairs with it until I saw my father in the middle of the house walking away from my mother. She was laying on the ground once more, covered in blood from her forehead.

"Get the fuck out of my way, you little shit. I have to get a towel for your mother."

Something broke inside of me there. It would never be repaired. It was as if my arms swung on their own. I threw down all my weight on the bat and slammed my father's head to the ground. His skull cracked wide open in front of me, and blood shot everywhere. It came to me only a few moments after that he fell to the ground that he was dead, but I was still angry.

"YOU WON'T HURT MOM ANYMORE YOU BASTARD!"

I kept swinging and swinging at his corpse, until my mother ran over to me and yelled at me.

"What the fuck are you doing?! Have you gone insane?"

I was so shocked. I let the bat fall on the floor, and my hands felt so cold. I thought that everything I was doing was in the defense of my dearly beloved mother, but it seemed like she didn't think that was true.

"But…he was beating you…he made you feel pain…I was always told hurting women is not a good thing."

She took a tight grip to my hand. "THAT DOESN'T MAKE KILLING YOUR FATHER A GOOD THING!"

"He wasn't protecting you…I was told that a man must protect a woman with the sake of his life…Why is this wrong?"

She fell to the floor, crying over my father's dead body. She desperately tried to get him to talk once more, but to no avail.

My head was spinning, and I couldn't understand anything at this moment. I whispered to myself, "No…No. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no."

I ran into the kitchen, and banged my head against the sink. "WHAT THE FUCK?!"

There was never a moment in my past life where I felt that killing was a good thing. In fact, I detested it in every sense. Seeing all these narratives that I grew up with collide with each other made me question the truth value of everything that I had been told so far. "What is beauty? What is love? What is pain? WHAT IS ANYTHING?"

At that moment, it felt like a lightning bolt struck my head. When my art was rejected, it was rejected in the same fashion that my mother rejected my response. There was no way to reconcile this with how society asked me to act. They tried to sculpt me into the perfect student, who always obeyed authority but refused to question when things did not make any sense. The art that I had shown everyone looked ugly to them, but that is because they were scared to understand my genius. Yes…I am not evil…I am beautiful…

If my mother thinks I am not beautiful, then she is just like my father.

I could have sworn at this point that I was hearing things in my head, because when I turned around and saw nothing in my sight I still heard something whispering to me, as if it was begging me to act. I looked around, and saw the kitchen knife that my mother had been using to cut carrots. I picked it up, and something clicked inside of me there. A whisper-less object is not as silent as you may think; you just have to be able to respond to its calling and void any doubts in your mind.

I walked into the living room where my mother was still grieving my father's death. I came up right behind her, and gritted my teeth for what I was about to do. "It's okay mother…" I thrust the knife in her backside, and watched her as she fell over on top of my father's body. "If you refuse to see my beauty, then I will just make you beautiful instead." Even though I braced myself for the potential pain that killing my mother would cause, something about that moment just felt so _exhilarating_ …

You see, even before this moment when I had killed both my parents, there was this ecstasy that I had for the perfect images. The ones that you looked at and could see how well-developed it was from every single angle. I thought that the most recent piece I had made was the most beautiful one of them all, because it was to captivating. Right before my eyes, I could see my drawing unfold into reality. I grabbed my camera and my notebook, and I was finally able to make _art._ I wasn't restricted anymore by things that people said; I just let the pen move freely in the way that I always wanted to.

The rush I felt from this moment was so unique…I wanted more of it. "I can make you beautiful…YOU WERE UGLY UNTIL NOW, BUT NOW YOU'RE SO BEAUTIFUL!" I didn't even think of what I was doing, but before I knew it I was slicing away at my parent's corpses and spraying blood on all the walls. The smell of rotten flesh was disgusting, but it gave the scene its distinct allure that I couldn't handle.

I took so many different pictures that before I knew it, the sun was rising. School that day would be the most captivating of all the days of my life at that academy. I came in before any of the staff could even enter the building. I was greeted by my teacher who disgraced my art.

"What are you doing here this early?!"

I laughed. "Didn't you always use to tell me that art doesn't sleep? I couldn't resist creating this new masterpiece." I handed him a camera, and as he rolled through the pictures I could just tell he was mortified. "I call it…the sour taste of love…"

His hands started shaking once he made the connection of the people who were dead. It looked as if he was about to puke. "Are you shitting me? These are your parents!"

I laughed again, but louder. "But teacher, you told us to bring our real life images of the world into life. MY ART HAS MOLDED INTO ITS NEWEST FORM!"

He dropped the camera, and backed away from me. "You're a monster…how could you murder your parents?! I'm calling the Piltover Police on you!"

I stood there as he ran away. "Just make sure to watch your step; you just might become…" I walked away slowly, and heard my teacher scream as he ran into my TNT crate that was about to go off. I looked back, and yelled one last time, "…MY NEXT PIECE!"

 _BOOM_. The building started to fall down as I still continued to exit slowly. I knew that there would be countless reports upon reports of what happened that day, but I wasn't yet ready to take on all of this. I had to create a new persona for something that was coming alive inside of me. I was no longer the person who I was told I am.

My mother once told me a story when I was much younger. I remember every single part of it:

"Let me tell you a short story…So, this is the story of a man with a mask. This man was a very popular Pianist, and he would perform at the most exquisite of all concerts and operas around his area. No one really knew who he was, and the masked man didn't want others to know who he was. There was this subtle yet interesting notion of mystery that was attached to him, and he carried that mask wherever he went. When he decided to take off his mask, the audience shrieked at him because his face looked so demonic and distorted. You're probably wondering what is origin is, I bet? Well, as the story goes, he was an angel of the Devil who was sent to Earth to show humans how different a persona people carry with them when they see someone. The angel told the humans, 'Everyone wears a _mask_ , but few choose to reveal what lies beneath that mask.'"

The mask that I chose to create would be the way in which I want to express my feelings to the audience. I want something mysterious, but captivating. Cold eyes that kill, but darker than black.

I decided that I would write a story of a world that wanted to deny what true beauty is, until finally everyone could see something new in their lives. I decided that no one currently in Valoran would accept this story, but I knew that I could make it a reality if I used the Institute of War and made the champions my puppets. It would only be then that I could put forth this new plan.

The script was done so long ago, I just had to wait a few years until the Noxus and Ionia rematch was coming up so that I could ignite a fire in the crowds of both Noxus and Ionia. I had so much time to think about who I wanted to drive over the edge, so let me give you a small backstory of the killers that I had chosen for each act.

The lovely Du Couteau girl, Katarina, was my first target. Some of you may not know, but Katarina was not always violent to begin with. Her violent habits evolved from the fear of everything around her. Everyone who new Katarina could not be helped but run away from her because of how scary she was. It made Katarina feel like she had to prove something, so she tried to develop less violent tactics in order to make people see who she really is. She went into nature one day and climbed up a tree. Funnily enough, there were many birds in a nest but they were without their mother. Katarina reached out her hand to pet the birds, but even the birds felt the same despair that humans felt when they entered Katarina's presence. The birds all jumped out of the high tree, but their wings had not yet developed so they died once they landed onto the ground. Katarina had never cried in her entire life, but this moment made her question her purpose in life if it was impossible to interact with others.

There was one last moment that made her change the way she thought. She saw a bunny who got its leg stuck in a twig. Katarina swooped down and cut the twig in half, letting the little bunny free. Katarina put her hand over the small animal and pet its light fur, but the bunny tried to skip away even with a limp leg. Before it could escape, Katarina took out her blade and impaled it into the ground. It took so long for Katarina to realize, but her killing instincts were a part of her essence. If people ran from Katarina, the only thing she could do is kill them. I even set up the same tree for Katarina's murder so that she would know this killing game was truly meant for her.

Graves was one of the more interesting candidates for the killing game, because even though he was seen typically as a bandit, he tended to play Mr. Nice Guy all too much. However, that only made it even more interesting to see him in his darkest moments, because the agony that would fill his heart in the final moments of his game are the true emotions that he attempted to wish away in his everyday life. At heart, he was nothing more than a killer.

Graves had a brother at one point in his life…His brother was really his only family since he never knew his mother or his father very well. When threatened with his life, his brother would always intervene to save him. It gave Graves an inferiority complex because he never developed as the man that he always aspired to be – that of his brother. Graves decided one day to create a situation so bizarre that it would bring his brother to an inevitable death. He had stolen a thug's motorcycle and taunted him outside a bar one day, and the man came out with a large shotgun pointed at Grave's smug face. His brother arrived just seconds before the shot went off, and managed to save Graves. His brother asked Graves to fight alongside him, but instead he smirked and set off with his bike. Graves betrayed his brother and left him to die there to the rest of the thugs who came outside the bar, all just to become a man.

Something interesting that I noted about Graves was that he never really talked about his brother, even on his death bed. He only talked about that little twerp that he pretended to protect on the outside. This was something that I couldn't find in most other candidates for the killing game; he was so attached to the image of the tough man that he completely blacked out every single memory of his brother. It seemed that Graves thought he could never live up to the image of his brother, so he burned every single bridge that led to his brother in the process.

Ahri, the Nine Tailed Fox, and my personal favorite candidate. While some people in the game had killer instincts to begin with or just hiding inside of them, Ahri was one who had switch side personalities. I am not the type of person who lusts over the type of sexualized killings that she produces, but I was a big fan of her art nonetheless. It was the originality in her killings that made her so unique. It made me think that her normal self was just a part of her spirit lying to herself about what she wanted, because she only seemed truly happy whenever she entered her less delicate form.

Peace was truly hard for her, because it never existed in the first place. No matter what she did, she could not escape the sexual desires that would enter her head no matter who she saw in her daily life. A champion such as her that uses spirit essence made her a bit of an emotional one, since it wasn't easy for control how she felt in certain circumstances. Even if she wanted to feel angry, there would always be a side of her that also thirsted for harmony.

I really do not see how people pity a girl like her. She reminds me of a wolf in sheep's clothing – her appearance is rather playful and exotic but that doesn't take away from her dangerous personality. Even I would fear her if she was around me, because she is rather unpredictable and doesn't like it when someone plays hard to get. I remember one time when she was still in Summoner's Academy, she would go on blind dates just to see if there was anyone she could get to know from the outside in…instead of the inside out, if you catch my drift. It didn't matter what Ahri wore, said, looked, or did, because they would always fall in love with her. The funny thing about this, however, is at some point she got annoyed with how many people were swooning over her, so she tried rejecting all her dates. One in particular was very interesting; it really showed me that I was right about Ahri.

It went something like this: a friend of Garen was told about how captivating Ahri is, and that if you stare in her eyes you will become entranced in her beauty. He was blind, so when he looked at Ahri he pretended that he could withstand her. This made Ahri angry, so she stood there silently for a few moments. Suddenly, her tails and ears both shot up in delight, and Ahri gave a devilish smile to Garen's friend. Before he knew it, Ahri was slowly walking towards him. Garen told him to run, and run he did. It was one of the most amusing scenes I think that I have ever witnessed with Ahri. Instead of just receiving men on a platter, she chased after one herself and it gave her a thrill that she lusted for so much. The man who tried to run from Ahri tripped over his shoelace, and the last thing he heard before his soul was devoured was the frightening laugh of Ahri, and her last words…'Playtime is over…'

I'm sure my audience by now is still trying to forge their memories from my past acts of how lonely Ahri felt by not being able to display human emotions. You really think that she couldn't display the same emotions as regular humans? If you agree with that statement, then you disgust me. You are just like those puppets in Valoran who listen to what they are taught and never think about what it truly means. To display emotions is to show people your essence. When Ahri seduced someone, that was her way of showing her emotions. Even if those do not _seem real_ , they do not detract from _who she was_ as a person. That is why I hate the stigma that people assign to Ahri and why I absolutely adored her as a candidate in the killing game. It makes me both sad and relieved knowing she is dead, because for all I know she could've easily killed me if she had gotten on the outside, but at the same time she is the embodiment of the art I wanted to show the world.

There are a few backstories that I do not want to present to the audience just yet, because they would spoil the ensuing acts, and no one would want that! Looks like you will just have to wait a few more days before your brilliant author releases these final moments.

Now then, I came inside the Institute as a bodyguard for a champion, and then set up shop in a laboratory in the basement that was discontinued after the Institute was created. I locked myself in there with my bag and quickly started encoding my virtual reality as I saw it in the script. It was so easy, and I had the chance to potentially kill off every single champion one at a time if I wanted to; that type of narrative begs the question of why? Why should I kill everyone when I can make them do it themselves? The cruelty and despair-inducing actions that they would resort to would show everyone that nothing about these acts are 'evil' if their own beloved champions are doing them as well.

I set up every little detail from chapter to chapter so that they would slowly progress in some areas, but know that at some point it was futile. If it ended right now, I would be an awful play-writer. I decided that I want to watch them before my eyes in this Institute and watch them fall before my eyes. After all, it's not the kill that is beautiful in and of itself, but the performance of it all.

Let me end this monologue here, because I think they have finally found out how to escape. Everything to this point has been perfectly according to script, and now I must set forth an absolutely delightful ending to this deadly event.

"Greetings champions and everyone else in the Institute of War. This is your puppet master Jhin. This game has been a great deal of fun so far, but let's not have it end so quickly. If you want to make it all end, then why don't you meet me down in the Abandoned laboratory in the ground level where I am hiding? I will give you all ten minutes to the clock, starting now…and please, don't be late. _Your audience is knocking at the door_."

~ I want to make this one note clear – nothing changed in me that day. Indeed, it was just the beauty inside of me blooming like a flower in the dawn. ~


	9. Act VIII - The Flower of Dawn

The champions had all gathered together just outside of their houses that night in hopes of escaping the deadly killing game set by Jhin. When Lucian was roaming around looking for an escape, he found a notebook in Fiora's room with a bunch of mathematical equations and sequence coding functions. He quickly figured out what all of the equations meant, and realized that it could be a potential way to reverse the command sequence that started the game. If it worked, they would be able to go back into the Institute of War and end this once and for all.

"Question!" Lulu raised her hand while next to Lux. "Will we get food when we are on the other side?"

Lux laughed. "We should really be serious right now, Lulu. This is going to be a really important day. Our nations are awaiting our return. For all we know, they could still be watching us right now."

Lulu put on a frowning face and crossed her arms. "Lulu can't concentrate without food…blehhhh."

The others held their position while forming into a circle. Lucian opened the notebook, and started speaking. "Contingent factoring of this world, remove the champions here and send them back to where they have been summoned." A light disc appeared in between all of the champions, and it started to extend to where all the champions were sitting on the ground. "Keep moving on…"

All of them braced themselves for what was about to happen.

Lucian closed his eyes and yelled out the last phrase. "The light will purge all the darkness in this world. Enter command sequence, phase 3. CANCEL, SLASH, REOPERATE, UNITE, RETURN!"

The disc started spinning rapidly. The champions felt their souls being pushed away from them, and their bodies fell over on the ground before them. People were frightened that they may have just lost their bodies, but they had to wait for an announcement from the Institute of war.

Lux opened her eyes, and what she before her had frightened her heavily. She saw the bodies of everyone who was killed in the killing game: Katarina, Caitlyn, Graves, Fiora, Ahri, Jayce, Zed, Sona, Vi, Garen, and Orianna. So many dead bodies before her, and it just kept reminding her of all the defeats that she had to go through already in the game thus far. Lux walked over to Jayce's body, but she still felt a slight bit of warmth in Jayce's body. It was as if he was still alive momentarily, but this didn't make sense to Lux because she had no clue where she was to begin with. It was a long and dark hallway with lights just pointed right at the champions' bodies. Before she could make out what this place might be, she closed her eyes and then suddenly felt all the blood rush back into her fragile body. She fell over onto something, and opened her eyes.

"Ah…Oh, this…This is the Institute. WE DID IT! WE ESCAPED!"

Meanwhile, the person under Lux poked at her breasts. "Boop Boop."

Lux immediately backed away in embarrassment and noticed she was on top of Lulu the whole time. "W-what the heck, Lulu?"

Lulu was still not looking so happy-go-lucky as usual. "Why can't Lulu be big too?"

Lux looked down at her chest and realized that she was upset she didn't have bigger boobs. Before she could really make out their situation, she just burst out laughing. "Wouldn't that be a little odd for a person your size?"

Lulu shrugged, and got up to her feet. The other champions slowly came out of their summoning chambers. "It's so nice to have this body back." Lucian clocked both of his guns, and went straight down the hall. "Let's go and end this battle, right here and now."

The others followed Lucian as he entered into a crowd of soldiers. They immediately hurdled all of the champions to the ground. "WE'RE SO GLAD YOU ARE ALL ALIVE!"

Once Tetsuken came into the hallway, the soldiers immediately stood back up and held their hands firmly in front of their foreheads.

"At ease, soldiers. I'm so glad to see that you all returned safely. Jhin has revealed his location, so I have a unit going to invade him shortly."

Soraka interrupted him shortly after. "Tetsuken, you shouldn't do such a thing! It's us that he is concerned about, dragging in more of your soldiers will only make matters worse."

Pantheon agreed. "That barbarian must fall to our hands and our hands only. Anything less would be a disgra-AOOOWWWWW!" Pantheon shot up instantly at the feel of his skin being bitten. He shook off his right arm rapidly and noticed that Lulu was biting his arm. "WHAT THE FUCK?!"

Lulu growled while staying hooked onto Pantheon. "Aren't bakers supposed to taste better than this?"

Pantheon didn't look amused at all, as he kept shaking his arm in frustration. "STOP MOCKING MY DREAMS YOU LITTLE RUNT!"

Lux tried to help get Lulu off Pantheon, but she was still cracking up whilst doing it. Tetsuken was just standing there behind the rest of the champions with the same bold face that he had on the entire time. This next few days had a lot in store for the Institute of War; it meant that every single second and decision would be a matter of life and death. They managed to get Lulu off of Pantheon, and had them follow Tetsuken to where Jhin said he was hiding. He met with his unit and told them to back off for now.

Tetsuken ordered the rest of the champions to bring back Jhin, dead or alive. Lucian leaned more on the side of killing Jhin with any chance that he got, but he knew that there would always be some side constraints to his decisions. Lucian had felt that for the entirety of the killing games that he had too much knowledge. Everything up until this point was so perfect for Jhin, it made no logical sense to him that he would reveal his location and openly challenge people to fight him at a numbers disadvantage. What was he aiming for?

Jhin was just resting on a big lounging chair, plucking away at a small flower whilst whispering, "She dies here, she dies not, she dies here…"

Lucian was the first to enter the room and point his guns at Jhin. "Show yourself to me, you sadistic freak."

Jhin put down the flower, which was only a few plucks away from being stripped completely. He looked exactly the same as he did on the other side of the rift, but something about him in real life was more frightening to them.

"I'm so honored that you have openly performed to such a degree for me this long. Just imagine the reviews that we will get, what with your actions and my expertise…we'll be a great hit!"

Pantheon held his spear out in front of him and slammed it on the ground. "Nothing you say will get you out of this situation. Your inevitable demise is waiting you!"

Jhin didn't even respond to him. He only slowly clapped and looked over a long file that he had sitting in his lap. "I don't think of myself as a magician, but I really am good at hammering down every scene before it even happens. To think that a beauty such as mine never officially graduated…"

Lux couldn't stand it anymore. "Okay, the game's over Jhin. Spill everything you're hiding! Why do you keep talking like we're still-"

"On the set?" Jhin finished her sentence before she could. "And que my line: That is because, my dear, you are still on the stage in the most important scene of them all!"

Jhin threw over the folder that had lines of sheets with printed lines on them. Lux looked over and saw the document that he was reading, and it was an exact transcript of all the dialogue that they had just gone through. "N-No way…holy shit…"

Yasuo wasn't scared at all. "Nothing but child's play. If you think that your magic tricks will stop my sword, THEN YOU'RE AS IGNORANT AS MY DEAD BROTHER!" Yasuo rushed at him with his sword out, but Jhin snapped his fingers and caused Yasuo to trip on thin air. "What the hell was that?"

Jhin stood up from his chair, and opened a few cabinets from the desk that he was sitting at. He threw down a gun, a few bottles of various liquids, and a remote control switch.

"You cannot rush art, you filthy Ionian traitor. Performance requires buildup…charisma…attention getters…there is no pizazz to sending someone to their grave in such an ugly fashion. It seems I have already failed in teaching you true beauty. What a shame."

Yasuo tried to stand up, but he felt his body move off the ground before him. After a few seconds, Yasuo was hanging from the ceiling like a theater prop.

"Ahahaha, I always find ways to make my puppets dance. It seems for you…I must _pull the strings on my own accord!"_ Jhin lifted his fingers, and Yasuo's hands truly started flailing like a ragdoll.

Soraka walked over to Yasuo, but Lucian stopped her. "There's no negotiating with him. Just hear out this bastard."

Jhin stood up from the chair. "Very well then, I shall commence this narrative of ours. I know that you may think that everything thus far is just done by coincidence and luck, but actors are not chosen on whims. I chose everyone who is here for very specific reasons. It is most unfortunate that I must inform you that this information is more vital to the audience than you." Jhin threw across more folders with papers in them; all of them had champion titles or motive titles. He temporarily allowed Yasuo down from his trap so that he could also read the biographies that he had laid out.

Lux gathered up a bunch of them and started reading.

' _Ahri's bio…Caitlyn's bio…Fiora's bio…Jayce's bio…they all share so many similar characteristics, but it's so scary to think they fit this game almost perfectly with the actions they would take around the champions that they bonded with. I don't understand it…'_

Lucian peeked in one that talked about how he chose Graves and Katarina. Jhin knew that there was something hiding in them, even if their normal self seems deceiving. "Anybody could tell who the killers were at the beginning if you personally knew them. Nothing but a poor man's magic trick."

Jhin sighed. "Magic…" He walked over to Lucian, and put his gun right underneath his chin, while clutching his shoulder with his right hand. "My art is not a trick, and you will appreciate its beauty in all its essence." Jhin was furious at this point, but then he randomly started laughing, and went back over to his chair. He glanced over at one of the folders that he didn't throw over.

Lucian was agitated. "What's so funny?"

Jhin sat down and looked over into Lucian's dark eyes. "I almost forgot one thing: _you didn't complete the game._ "

Lux and Soraka gasped. "W-We didn't get rid of the game yet?"

Pantheon denied it. "We're no longer on the rift, everything that happened there was only because of constraint. What makes you think we will turn our back on each other now?"

Lulu tilted her head downward, and clutched her wand closely. "No one…wants to play games…with Lulu…"

Pantheon turned around slightly. "Huh, wh-GUHHHH." Pantheon looked down to see something small and fragile pierce through his chest, and he realized it was Lulu's wand. "What in…the world…"

Lulu stood on top of Pantheon, and smirked. "You'll taste better dead anyway, hehe." She zapped pantheon and morphed him into a cupcake. The frosting was covered with Pantheon's blood, but that did not stop Lulu from munching on it with all her tiny might.

Yasuo tackled Lulu to the ground. "I should've fucking known you were the traitor all along. Accept your fate, you scum."

Lulu gulped down the cupcake of Pantheon's remains, and giggled adorably but with the most sinister look. "You really think that LULU was the traitor? Thick-skulled humans like you should _just die off already_."

Soraka and Lux couldn't assess the situation anymore. Lux fell over into Soraka's lap, and felt so dizzy that she started to lose her sight.

Yasuo was so furious that he was about ready to kill Lulu and disregard all negotiations, but Lulu ran away from him too soon

Jhin threw over one more bio, and clapped slowly. "Once more, a beautiful performance for the audience. Who will be the next to be consumed in this marvelous feeling?"

Yasuo threw down his sword and rushed through the file that Jhin had thrown down. "This…this is about Lulu. UGH…w-what?"

Lulu stood still right in front of Yasuo. Even though she killed a champion right in front of them, she was smiling and acted like nothing happened. "Oh, it looks like even a peasant like you can finally make a coherent connection, WOWZERS! Well, let me formally re-introduce myself!"

Lulu ran over to where Jhin was sitting, and stood on his head, as if she was trying to provide comedic relief for a despair-induced scene. "Every year, worthless champions like you constantly destroy villages of my furry little pets in order to continually develop Valoran. The Summoner's Rift was just one of the many projects in the Institute of War to legitimize a genocide on animals and faeries alike. Of course, I stood out to the Institute and became a champion…but I had a purpose." Lulu laughed sadistically again, and held out a wide smile. "I wanted to personally **kill every single one of you**. I sure hope you'll still love Lulu even after this game!"

Jhin didn't move, even though Lulu was still dancing on his head. "Every artist must have their twist. With Lulu, I was able to usher in a new sort of spice into the killing game by invoking the spirit of killing in an outlandish setting. I had to wait until the stage was cleared, otherwise my precious little faerie might've just gone wild."

Lulu blushed. "Awww, you don't have to call me that! Besides, YOU are a champion as well and Lulu will kill you just as easily for identifying with animal killers!"

Jhin laughed. "You're a real charm for sure. Your sacrifice won't be forgotten…"

"Eh?"

Jhin jumped out of his chair, and suddenly Lulu was caught in a trap that tangled her against the chair by the same thread used to hold up Yasuo.

Yasuo ran directly at Jhin to stop him, but he was kicked away with such might that he was hurled all the way across the room. "I hate hypocrites almost as much as I hate it when people _interrupt my performance_. If it weren't for me, your drive for killing would be a short fuse only lit to explode in small bursts." Jhin walked over to Lulu, and patted her on the head. "I do respect you for your place in this story overall, but your very existence threatens this marvelous endeavor." Jhin twisted the chambers in his gun, which revealed to have one bullet remaining. He walked over to his flower, and plucked the final petal. "Now then, everyone…there is something that has been completely absent from this game thus far. It is that of a cataclysmic fashion that connects everything together."

Lucian tried to think back to what has happened so far. ' _I can't think he really means that all these deaths are connected in similar fashions…unless…'_

Jhin yelled out, as if he read Lucian's mind, "THAT'S RIGHT. EMBRACE MY LINE OF THOUGHT, MY PUPPETS, LET IT ALL COME TO YOU!"

"It…it must have to do with something that Jhin talked about in the rules."

All of them thought back to things that were said by Jhin, but one line stuck with them

' _…I will wait until four of you remain…_

 _…Four…'_

Jhin's gun blasted instantly as the champions figured it out, and Lulu was blown away from the chair and killed instantly. He dropped his gun to the floor, and started laughing very hard. "Four…Four champions killed by my gun…Four champions killed by other champions…Four demonstrations of my beauty…FOUR DAYS SINCE THIS PROJECT HAS BEGAN…FOUR CHAMPIONS ALIVE RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES!"

Soraka couldn't understand it. "To align everything you've done thus far with the number four doesn't explain why you created this situation…Just tell us…"

Jhin turned around, and threw back on a serious tone. "Okay, I shall inform you as a reward for your cooperation." Jhin walked around, and looked at various paintings on the wall that recounted the first war between Noxus and Ionia. "This hall and this palace itself is an insurrection that reminds us of the brutality of war. The killings that have been virtualized under the Summoner's Rift only make us think we have escaped the cruelty of life, and they make us behave like _humble and content animals_. I want to change that by displaying my art to the world. I promised to my mother that I would become famous…no matter what shade it took…"

Lucian clocked both his guns. "Enough is enough. What have you done with the Summoners for all the champions?"

"Ah, yes, a good question indeed. Well, you have all unfortunately fallen prey to my _fabulous prank_! That is, the champions that I fielded for this killing game are still connected to the Summoner's Rift and have not completely lost consciousness of their bodies. In case you weren't clever enough to think on your own, let me put one and two together for you – _none of the champions are truly dead yet._ "

As soon as Lux heard this, she shot straight up. "HUH?! THEY'RE ALIVE? WHERE ARE YOU HIDING THEM?"

Jhin smirked, and sat back down. "Quiet down and hear me out, dear. I know that you saw them when you came back, so this shouldn't be new to you. Their location should be the least relevant thing that we discuss right now, since that is an issue for the future. I think instead you would like to know the conditions that they are in thanks to your fellow champions actions." Jhin flipped a switch, which showed all the champions in their Summoning Holographic Pods, but all of them looked extremely pale and cold.

Lucian, for once in his life, felt shivers down his spine. "T-That's just not natural."

Jhin flipped the switch and mocked Lucian. "You look like you've seen a ghost. Fear not, they will not die just yet. They are in a drug induced coma that is a direct result of an epistemic event occurring inside their brains from the thought of being killed. They felt the pain on the outside, but the harm occurred on the inside so it meant that their hearts didn't stop beating. The next detail is the most important – _it is only I who can save them_." Jhin held up a long vile of a purple looking potion. "If any of them drink this, they will automatically wake up and recover all of their drained spirit energy. Without it, they will lose their grip on reality and truly die."

The door behind Lucian burst open. "SURRENDER NOW, JHIN!" Ionian warriors jolted through the open and pointed swords at him unilaterally. Elder Bishou of Ionia also came in, and looked at the champions who were on the ground. He scoffed at them, and called them traitors. Bishou's eyes were set on the mad killer in the center of the room who acted like nothing was happening at all.

"Jhin, it's over. You will die here." He helped Lucian off the ground, and ordered him to shoot Jhin.

Lucian rejected. "I don't take orders from people like you."

Bishou's soldiers immediately came behind Lucian as if they were about to arrest him, but Bishou orderd them to back off.

Jhin got up and temporarily stopped laughing. "Well, I guess that _could happen_ , but I don't suppose you have a death wish of your own?"

Bishou tightened his fist in anger. "What are you talking about?"

Jhin slightly opened up a part of his robotic-like chest to reveal explosives tied to him – four of them to be exact. "I LIVE FOR THE THRILL OF THIS MOMENT! WILL YOU ALLOW THE IDOLS OF YOUR REGION TO DIE, OR WILL YOU KILL ME AND SACRIFICE YOURSELVES?"

Lucian and Soraka kept trying to resist against Bishou's soldiers, who were still all aiming at Jhin.

Bishou felt no remorse. "I don't care how many more people die in this place. My only objective is to crush Jhin."

A javelin was thrown right beside Bishou's feet, and they heard a voice come in from the door. "I won't let you get away with that, you smug bastard." Bishou turned around to see Tetsuken holding a spear-like gun with eyes that could kill. "I have had enough of you stomping into my Institute, coercing my men, tracking down Jhin without my consent, and then putting my soldiers at harm. If you don't back down now, I will kill you without a second thought."

Bishou neglected him. "I won't fall prey to your petty aversions anymore, Tetsuken."

As he said this, an explosion came from the ceiling next to Bishou just about twenty feet from where he was standing. A small part of the roof came down, and Jhin shot a grappling hook through the hole and went flying out. He called out to people below him: "I'd love to stay and talk, BUT I MUST CONCLUDE THIS ACT SOON!"

Lucian soon realized what he was talking about, and hauled the rest of the champions along with him through Bishou's army and Tetsuken, who also had the assistance of his own army at his backside at this point. That flashpoint of conflict was not of interest to them at this point; any moment that they didn't have eyes on Jhin made them fear for their lives.

Lux couldn't hold back her tears any longer, and she fell over on one of the flights of stairs. "I…I don't think I can go on…I don't have the mental strength to carry the weight of this any longer! I've seen so many people die for no reason at all. This doesn't concern me…"

Lux heard Jhin's voice in her head.

' _Alas, here we are…The lights are shining brightly into the center stage, the crowd is going wild, and the show is making a big scoop. My dearest Luxanna, your performance is going to make the audience think twice about you. What happened to the brave girl who commanded her own army for Demacia? What about the beautiful youth in the Academia for champions? Do you really want your ending to be so similar to your brother…? Do you feel so weak that you can't make any more moves on this beautiful stage? If so…it seems that you failed all those people who loved you. You failed your beloved country to protect your flesh and blood, you failed your promise that no one would die, and even worse…you failed your own little Alice…_

Lux broke down and pounded the ground beneath her, saying, "I failed…"

Lucian put his hand on Soraka. "I need you to come with me." She agreed, and they started running continuously up the stairs. "Yasuo, please escort Lux to the Summoning Chamber and rescue the remaining Summoners. We need them to get out of here alive if we are going to be able to defeat Jhin. That's an order."

Yasuo shrugged off everything that he said, but decided that he would continue to pick up Lux and head over to the Summoning Chamber.

' _I hate it when I see people emotionally break. I don't hate it because it hurts me…I hate it because it's bullshit. No one choses our lives except for us…we willingly choose to react how we wish, and this is no different. Why do you people care so much for things so distant to you?'_

They got there relatively fast since nothing was stopping them now. All of them were there, but most of them were asleep. The ones that weren't asleep were obviously the Summoner's of the champions who were still alive. Yasuo's Summoner Kizou greeted Yasuo very happily when they got there. "Master, I'm so glad you're back. We'll have to get back to training when this is all over!"

Alice, who was right behind Kizou, saw Lux in all her despair on top of Yasuo's shoulders. Yasuo let down Lux, and Alice crawled up into her chest. "Umm…Luxanna…"

Lux snapped out of her paralysis, and noticed Alice right underneath her. "Is that you, Alice?"

Alice was smiling, but she couldn't help but feel sad. She buried her crying face in Lux's breasts as she held onto Lux tightly. "I'm so glad…that you're still okay…"

Lux patted her head and leaned over to the wall behind her. "Child, it's okay. As long as you are in my arms, no one can hurt you."

Soraka's Summoner, Chisa, as well as Lucian's Summoner, Ray, both came over to where Yasuo and Lux were sitting down. Both of them asked where their champions were, but Yasuo and Lux did not answer. They told them they just had to wait and hope for the best.

Jhin was now on top of an arch that was hanging in the center of the hallway inside of the Institute of War. The screen came back online, and Jhin was being shown bowing to the audience once more. "I hope you have all enjoyed my performance thus far. Don't leave your chairs just yet – **_you are about to witness the most thrilling conclusion!_** "

Lucian saw Jhin, but he couldn't stop him just now. He had to wait a few seconds to see what his next move would be. Jhin already noticed that he was being watched, but this only filled him with more pleasure knowing that there was a visible audience.

"First, I want to que the music…" Jhin snapped his fingers, and then a piano started playing in the background. It was so loud that it could be heard crystal clear outside the Institute.

Tetsuken felt himself shudder a bit. "W-What is this feeling? I thought I heard a voice singing to me…"

 _'Wait…Is that a piano? But we don't even have one in the Institute. It must be the work of that sadistic criminal! But that begs the question of why I feel so entranced by something that should be repelling to me…'_

Jhin acted like he was playing the violin, and the music that he had playing in the background matched perfectly with his imaginary strings. He started humming to himself, "one…two...three…four…"

Soraka felt the ground shaking under her. "Uh-w-what is going on? Is the Institute moving on its own?" Suddenly, the pillars started moving on their own. They spun wide open, and became totally black.

Jhin came to a halt in his music, and clapped. "I thank you for your attention once more. This will be my last dialogue for the foreseeable future, so please stay with me folks. What you are here to witness will change how you view the world, and how you respond to normal everyday actions. My art is something that doesn't pull someone out of their own will, but instead entices something inside the viewer that motivates them to act. In the past, we have created an _ugly illusion of reality_ that has remain untouched until now. Your Institute of War is filled with a beautiful history of its own, but so many people have wished to forget what it has been all about for now…"

Soraka tried to get Lucian to stop him, but he put his arm back to caution her.

Jhin continued, "Now then, everyone, I think that it is time that we create our own timeline now – one that is not bound by what you are told by historians or contemporary standards of society – a timeline that fills you with the passion to express yourself in the terms you wish – a future that is the brightest of them all! Now, many of you may hate me because of what I have shown you thus far. This does not concern me, because your long lasting attachment to the champions of your countries is what has poisoned you in the first place. Thus, let us drink the potion that shall unlock the cure we seek…" Jhin snapped his fingers again, and the dark pillars revealed cracks in their upper middle parts. Soon enough, the camera zoomed in on each pillar to reveal explosives attached to all of them.

Lucian's eyes lit up instantly. "Oh fuck, he's gonna blow the shit out of this place!"

Jhin started up the music once more. " _Listen, and be entranced by my hymns of beauty."_ He pulled out his gun, and lined it up with the first pillar. He pulled the trigger, and shot right through the first explosion.

 **BOOM.**

Jhin laughed, and pumped his fist into the air. " **THAT'S ONE!"**

The rhythm of the song became more and more upbeat as the situation escalated. Lucian couldn't shoot him because he kept shaking from the ground moving beneath him. If he missed the shot and hit Jhin's explosives, then a chain reaction would've went off and killed everyone instantly. This was the first moment that Lucian looked truly terrified, and Soraka could see it.

"I can't…believe how smart he is. He predicted every situation thus far perfectly."

Soraka didn't let him give up this early. "We didn't get this far to lose, Lucian! This isn't a game anymore; we have people who we have given our trust to. Our Summoners still wish to see us, and we want to ensure their safety as well as the safety of our own people. You can't let Jhin get to you now!"

Lucian calmed down, but he still couldn't hold his gun accurately.

Time was running out. The roof of the entire Institute was already suffering cracks from the explosion of the first pillar. It was only a matter of minutes until the whole place collapsed entirely.

Jhin didn't even give them time to react. Another shot came down.

 **BOOOM.**

Jhin yelled in success. **"YES, THAT'S TWO!"**

Lucian fell over onto the ground, and Soraka helped him get back up. "Hold onto me if you have to. The room isn't shaking this much; if you lean on me, you can end this once and for all!"

Lucian got back up, and did as Soraka said. He leaned onto Soraka's back and stabilized his own movement. He lined up the shot, and fired multiple rounds at Jhin's location. Lucian tended to look away at the killing blow of most of his ordinary targets, but he had to keep watching to ensure that this had ended it.

Before the shots even came close to Jhin, he fired one more round from his pistol and threw it underneath him. He swiftly dodged the bullets that were fired at him, and pointed at the third pillar.

 **BOOOOM.**

" **THREEEEE!"**

Lucian's guns fell off the edge that he was hanging off of. He watched as they fell two floors below him, and nearly marking the end of his storyline here at the Institute of War. "No…I can't lose here…I won't lose here…I promised that I would save you, my love…" Lucian pounded his arch, and let out a single tear of imminent defeat as he watched Jhin pull out a long railgun from his shoulder. Each moment that passed by now felt like eternity for Lucian, who reminisced about his life before coming to the Institute of War for the Noxus vs Ionia rematch.

'… _I'm getting so close to finding the answers that I seek. It seems that nothing will be able to stop me from finding you, Senna.' Lucian opened up a locket that he had around his neck, which showed a picture of him kissing Senna. That was a few days before they were about to get married, before her soul was stolen from the Chain Warden.'_

Jhin popped inside his head as he did to Lux.

' _How does it feel to watch as you give everything, and it gets stolen away from you in the blink of an eye? Does it hurt to see everything around you fall apart? Tell me then, are you really who you say you are? If so, you disgust me. You of all people here were supposed to pose the greatest challenge to me yet. You stand there and silently watch everyone die without putting yourself on the line. Maybe your other half is better off dead…_

Lucian re-opened his eyes. "No…" He saw Jhin lining up the shot with his long gun, and gritted his teeth while thinking about what had happened many years ago.

 _'They took the better half of me that day, but with it I left behind my kindness and my mercy. Now, all I have left is a cold heart. They thrive on doubt…they feast on fear…these wretched abominations blight this world…and every last one of them will perish by my hand…'_

Soraka couldn't believe what she was seeing, but Lucian was moving on his own. He jumped onto the railing, and dove in the air where the bomb was. Soraka reached out to him, yelling, "LUCIAN, NOOOO!"

' _I have talked for too long. I won't let everything I have said thus far to be nothing but an empty promise. I will continue searching for her, and I will kill any demon that stands in my way. Until then,_ _ **I won't let you leave this place alive, Jhin.**_ _'_

Jhin fired the last shot, and shouted at the top of his lungs with brilliance, **"** **FOUUUURRRRRRR!"**

Lucian was in the air, but he landed on the pillar and started running up it. He blocked the fourth shot with his body, and prevented the final explosive from taking down the pillar. Lucian fell all the way to the ground, with his left arm over a big bullet wound in his lower stomach.

Soraka was terrified, and cried out. "LUCIAAAAAAANNNNNNN!"

Jhin put down his railgun, and closed his eyes. "It looks as if the curtain calls. GYAHHHH." Jhin felt a sharp pain in his stomach, and looked down to see Yasuo's sword stretch through him.

Jhin turned around to see a dark image on Yasuo that he had not seen before. "Burn in hell, you bastard." Yasuo retrieved the sword, and let Jhin fall flat in front of him.

For a moment, Jhin was still alive and he started laughing sadistically. Yasuo pointed his sword at Jhin's throat. "What are you laughing at? You lost!"

"My boy, you have so many things to learn. You are more receptive than the others, so I know my lasting image will be burned in your head forever. Here's my last lesson for you, wanderer: You will learn…art cannot be killed."

Yasuo didn't even contemplate anything that Jhin said, and he left him to die. He jumped down to aid Lucian, who was being aided by Soraka.

"Will he live?"

Soraka looked somewhat happy. "I think so, the shot wasn't nearly as deadly as I thought it would be! The only issue is patching up such a large wound."

Lucian groaned in pain from the healing techniques that Soraka used, but withstood it and held his hand in the air. "I really am…one step closer to finishing what I had started. I will save you, my love." Lucian passed out, and Yasuo took him on his back. Lux joined back up with them and the Summoners as they gathered around the entrance. The Summoners were also carrying the cold bodies of their respective champions, with the exception of those who were still alive. They made it outside safely, and soon Bishou and his men came out behind Tetsuken. They had put a truce on conflict for the time being since both of them were told that Jhin was dead. The people who were watching the game had already exited a while ago, once they saw that the Institute was collapsing. For all the champions knew, Jhin's project was a failure…for now…

The showing of the game had zoomed in onto Jhin's body, and it was left there for the remainder of the time until the Institute had collapsed entirely.

Yasuo in particular had watched Jhin, and he saw him whistling something. For some reason, he could hear it clearly.

 _'huuu huuuuu hu huuu…'_

Yasuo still couldn't believe it. "How is he still alive…"

' _Art…cannot be killed…'_ Yasuo heard this in his head so much after his debacle with Jhin. It was something that he could not escape from for the entirety of that night.

The soldiers felt gloomy, and one of them came up behind Tetsuken and contemplated. "Captain…what are we going to do now?"

Tetsuken didn't have the best idea, but he still answered. "We're going to have to build a new Institute. The next one will be much stronger than the last and have better preventative measures so that this never happens again."

Bishou looked at him as if he was repulsed by what he said. "You're going to act like this never happened, Tetsuken? You are still responsible for the death of all the champions that came from my country!"

Lux and Soraka tried to dispute that claim. "Hold on, there may be a way to revive them!" Lux pointed towards the Summoners of the Champions who were still alive, and with them they dragged the bodies of their respective champions, along with the help.

Yasuo thought to himself what Jhin had said before. "Wait…WHERE'S THE POTION?!" He looked up to the screen, where he saw Jhin holding up the purple vile. Jhin had crushed it in his hand, and started laughing maniacally once more.

Bishou was about ready to command his men to attack, but Tetsuken had already commanded his men to retreat. There was no winning in this situation for him. As for the champions, they had all left with the Summoners.

As their paths started to converge and Soraka was able to wake up Lucian, Lux hugged all of them and wished them luck on their future journey. "It doesn't matter what has happened up until now, we cannot change the horrible things of the past. We can at least be happy that we are all alive and that Jhin is gone forever."

Soraka agreed. "I'm going to take Lucian with me for further treatment. All the Summoners should also follow suit so that I can look over those bodies and see if there is a possibility they can wake up.

Lux smiled, and waved to them as she went off with Alice in the distance. She didn't know what awaited her in Demacia since Garen was dead, but she could at least hope that it would be nothing compared to everything she had experienced up until now.

As for Yasuo, he stood on a log and watched as Soraka helped heave Lucian away, along with the other Summoner. Kizou wanted to stay with Yasuo, but he had to help Soraka and the other Summoners so he left him there.

He began talking to himself. "You all make it seem like this is a happy ending. Jhin is defeated, everyone is just filled with joy, but in the end we lost so many good champions. We failed to rescue them with knowledge of the cure. We failed to stop conflict between Ionia and Noxus…and yet…"

Yasuo shoved his sword into the ground, and noticed the bloodstains that was left on it from killing Jhin. "It seems that…nothing has changed…"

The wind silently blew across Yasuo's long hair as he kept contemplating what everything that had just happened meant for him and the things around him. None of it made him think this was the ending they were seeking…what was left for him now?

Lost for answers, Yasuo leaned over on the log and looked into the sky.

"It's all over…I think…"

 _~I do hope you all enjoyed my performance; as such, all performances have a conclusion…but that doesn't mean it is over. The influence that I have graced upon this world will keep my spirit alive for much longer. Who knows…it might even evolve into something more beautiful than me…~_


	10. Act X - The Seeds that have been Sown

' _Art…cannot be killed.'_

…

' _Jhin is gone forever!'_

 _…_

 _'If it weren't for me, your drive for killing would be a short fuse only lit to explode in small bursts.'_

Yasuo could not escape any of these thoughts that plagued him for the entirety of that day. The Institute of War had fallen, but Jhin was not able to succeed in his performance as he had articulated it from the beginning.

Yasuo looked at the clouds above him and kept contemplating all these things. "It doesn't add up. How can someone so smart be defeated so easily?"

' _It is the performance that kills…'_

Everything that Jhin said felt like it had deeper meaning to Yasuo, but he couldn't quite understand what it all meant. Yasuo was more interested in trying to cope with the ending that he had just witnessed.

"I don't believe in happy endings, but what I have witnessed is beyond surreal. People act like they care about the fellow champions that have been murdered alongside them, and go as far as to call them _family_. They speak out against evil, but for the sake of whom? Their responses are unconditional, and so inhumane at times…"

That line came back inside Yasuo's head. ' _Art…cannot be killed.'_

Yasuo leaned up. "They didn't kill Jhin. He may not pull the strings on a future audience, but I still feel his daunting presence everywhere around me. People are outraged at the fact that the Institute tried to cover up this scandal. War is imminent between Noxus and Ionia." Yasuo felt angered. "To them, it's all a fucking game. As long as the enemy is killed, we have reached our _happy ending._ Am I supposed to feel happy now that Jhin is dead, even though my country wants me dead? Are the innocent Summoners supposed to act like this never happened?"

 _'It is the performance that kills…'_

Yasuo was standing high now against the setting sun. "Jhin only truly took Lulu's life on the outside. Even if it was his set, everyone played along like content animals in the wild. People raised fists, but never had the guts to stand down. It took the death of so many champions just to stop him, but it played perfectly into what he wanted."

Yasuo picked up his sword, and looked once more at the bloodstain that was still on it. "I killed you, but still you continue to haunt me. You had a particular interest in me, which I refused to reciprocate in. If you are so brilliant, why would you waste your time on a pathetic warrior like me?"

Yasuo flipped over his sword, and for a split second he saw Yone's face in the reflection of his sword. He threw it at the tree and fell to the ground while remembering that day once more.

' _Why…Why did you listen to them? You were the only family that I had…You were supposed to help train me…I LOVED YOU YONE!'_

Then, he started to think of his allies who tried to cheer him up.

 _'If you don't want to see another family perish…then stand up and fight!'_

"Family…" Yasuo's eyes became bloodshot red. We walked over to his sword. "You are not my family. You know nothing of me, nor do you care for my past. You killed your brothers and sisters out of self-preservation. Ionia stole my family from me and exiled me. I fucking hate you all."

As Yasuo thought more about it, Jhin was entirely against everything that he already hated. Jhin detested the unconditional defining of killing. Jhin wanted there to be a revolt around the world against the system that decenters people from conflict, even when there is ruptures everywhere. The fall of the Institute was not what Yasuo asked for, but it really did coincide with what he wanted.

"I detest Jhin, but his message wasn't evil. I cannot allow this event to go unnoticed. If it means that I have to take up this burden…"

He heard Jhin in his head once more. _'If it weren't for me, your drive for killing would be a short fuse only lit to explode in small bursts.'_

Yasuo took his sword out of the tree, and noticed that someone was coming from behind him. It was his Summoner, Kizou.

"Master!"

 _'I will sever all the ties to this fictional family. I will not let them make you an outcast, brother. I will not let people walk over me from now on. I will bring back color to this ugly world.'_

~My seeds have finally started to uproot. Truly, my beauty will continue to paint this world in blood… _one performance at a time!_

 **THE END.**


End file.
